


Euterpe And Her First Last And Always Vol 2: The Building

by HopelessWatersheep



Series: Euterpe And Her First Last And Always [2]
Category: Pink Floyd
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Attempted Murder, Bachelorette Party, Character Death, Curvy girls, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Drunkenness, Dubious Consent, Evil Plans, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Female Homosexuality, Genderfluid Character, Heterosexual Sex, Homoeroticism, Infidelity, Lesbian Character, M/M, MD/LB, Male Homosexuality, Marijuana, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Minor Violence, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Non-Linear Narrative, Nonbinary Character, Peeping, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Secrets, Sexual Dysfunction, Slut Shaming, Soap Opera, Stalking, Strong Female Characters, Strong Woman/Weak Man, Submissive Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:55:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 90
Words: 304,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24378349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopelessWatersheep/pseuds/HopelessWatersheep
Summary: A continuation of the exciting tale of Roger, David, Syd, and Maisie...As Maisie grows and moves on from her ordeal, she finds living with David to be the best thing for her. The two of them experience a strange, intense connection that mystifies them both, and dance around their feelings until they find they can't deny it anymore. Meanwhile, Roger grows ever more serious with his girlfriend Cora, who has no idea the extent of his feelings for her new found friend. Syd spirals more and more into his own darkness and chaos as he is left without anyone to care for him. Follow the gang to different destinations where they will get into romantic entanglements and destroy themselves with angst.Meanwhile, in the present, Maisie can't quite shake the feeling that something isn't right about her future sister-in-law, and finds that strange things keep happening that she wants to believe are a coincidence. The tensions between the two grow as they are forced to make nice with one another for Syd's benefit.
Relationships: David Gilmour/Original Female Character(s), Nick Mason/Original Female Character(s), Rick Wright/Original Female Character(s), Roger Waters/Original Female Character(s), Syd Barrett (Musician)/Original Female Character(s), Syd Barrett/Roger Waters
Series: Euterpe And Her First Last And Always [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1529393
Comments: 183
Kudos: 21





	1. Rick - Cambridge, 1969 - The Studio

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Volume 2!
> 
> I hope that you enjoyed Volume 1, because Volume 2 is even better. 
> 
> First off, some things: 
> 
> 1\. I gave the smut away for free in Volume 1, and while you will be getting smut there is significantly less in this volume because it takes a lot more time for character development and the development of Maisie and David's relationship you're going to have to work for your smut this time around. 
> 
> 2\. There's some playing with different genres in this volume. I haven't worked with genres like mystery and true crime before and so I might be a little shaky on it, please bear with me. 
> 
> 3\. If you enjoy the character Jane, let me know, as I'm toying with writing a spinoff story, something short, for her and Rick. 
> 
> 4\. Though Rosemary Breen, Syd's sister, has kept her name, she is for all intents and purposes a different person. Her physical description deviates wildly from what she looks like in real life, and this was done to make it easier to transition her to an original character when I eventually rework this to become original fiction. 
> 
> 5\. There are (for most of the book) only two timelines here instead of Volume 1's four, and instead of the past being episodic and jumping around we have more focus on the past than we did in Volume 1 because I found after writing the closet scenes in Volume 1 that I enjoyed fleshing out the past storylines and allowing multiple characters to give their point of view on them. It also seems like a lot of people who commented were pretty invested in the past storylines, and so while the present is also still very represented the past gets a little more TLC here than it did in Volume 1. This means that the fic will be longer. I don't know how many chapters it'll end up being when it's done.
> 
> 6\. Have fun, thank you for sticking with me, and please do continue to invest in and interact with this story. As I move forward with my writing and eventually getting to reworking it helps so much to know that people are enjoying what I've put out.

_So I thought this was a mess a year ago with the things that were happening between all the guys - specifically Syd and Roger -, and then it seemed to me to have calmed down a bit for awhile, and then Syd started to go wrong. I say 'go wrong' because I'm not sure what else to call it. He's not seen a doctor still, so no one has a word for what's going on with him, but he went wrong. That's the only way I can find to describe the extent of what's happened. His behavior has been unbelievable. Inexcusable. Bizarre. Abusive. It all started on stage with de-tuning his guitar or just staring blankly at the audience. That's when we started bringing Dave on for live shows when before we were only using him for recording the second album. Syd got one song on the second album, and it isn't because he only submitted one song. The rest were just so unusable that Rog (he hates to be called that, so naturally, I call him that all the time, mostly after he's acted like a tyrant at rehearsal or during a recording session- which he has today) and I took over, and to be quite honest with you I think our work is better than some of his work on the first album. I of course will never admit this to Roger because we aren't allowed to criticize Syd ever, even now after what he's done to his girlfriend. Well, I suppose ex-girlfriend now, right?_

_And that's a whole other matter that I'll get into, don't worry...we will absolutely talk about this rubbish fire business with Maisie and the closet, but first I want to tell you a bit about what Syd is doing now, because I don't think you will hear from him for awhile. If you do happen to hear from him, he will not say anything about reality that makes any sort of sense, and he'll probably repeat himself over and over again. So don't rely on anything he tells you that seems like it's an objective fact: it isn't. Syd lives now with an old friend from art school, a fellow named John who means well, but is absent most of the time while his brother and his brother's friends party all day and night, and abuse Syd for laughs, which seems to happen to him much too often if you hadn't gathered that by now. His mother, in denial, will not intervene and has convinced her daughter that nothing is wrong: 'it's just all those drugs'. Roger could let Syd live with him, but apparently he worries more about the cleanliness of his house than the health and safety of his very close friend while scolding us for not letting Syd into our homes (because he's a fucking hypocrite). Syd wants nothing to do with me or Nick, anyway, and we'll get to David shortly, so he stays in that terrible place. It leads him to wander about all day, though, because needless to say he doesn't want to spend time there. So that would be what Syd is up to: wandering about, going nowhere, all while lost somewhere else in his brain. Nothing, of course, is on his mind nearly as much as his lost love, who you'll find him moaning about to himself if you encounter him._

_It's been a week since Nick, Amelia, Jane and I found out about David getting Maisie from Syd's. All rehearsals were indefinitely cancelled, as was a gig we had been really looking forward to in France, which has been rescheduled for two months from now. Luckily, we're back to work now, but I just want to ask like, does this girl have no family? Does anyone give a fuck about her but us? Certainly doesn't seem that way, because now she's living with yet another member of my band (I'm getting a bit of a town bicycle vibe, aren't you? It's okay to think it, I'm definitely thinking it, just don't say it out loud). Anyhow, we had a rehearsal last week, and David didn't show up, but Roger came, and he told us everything: Syd locked Maisie in a closet for a week (or almost a week, maybe) with no food and very little water. David found her, and now she's staying with David (what did I say? Did I not say to watch out for David?). Presumably Roger spent some time with Syd, but not enough time to make sure he found a safe place to go. Of course. Because why contribute anything more than the bare minimum to a personal relationship? That might require you to think of someone besides yourself, and we all know how much Roger loves to do that._

_Maisie, of course, is never out of David's sight (guard dog, remember) for long, and so he's brought her with him today, and I'm watching her talk with Amelia. She doesn't look as good as she did, naturally, but it's nothing that time and sleep won't fix._

_"Are you doing better? Are you sleeping well? Tell me everything. I feel bad. I should have popped over. I was so busy, I just feel…"_

_"It's alright, really. Everyone seems to be blaming themselves, but I'm not focusing on that. Nobody is at fault, you know? I'm just trying to focus on getting better now. Sleeping is difficult because I have a lot of nightmares and flashbacks, but I'm trying."_

_That's got to be hell, the nightmare bit._

_"What do you find helps with that?"_

_"When I figure it out I'll tell you. As it is I'm just trying to figure out how to stay asleep."_

_She shows Amelia a weak smile, and they devolve into some conversation about whatever Amelia's been up to, as I've noted Maisie tends to do when she doesn't want to talk about herself anymore, but I tune it out because I'm simply not interested. What I did note before was David's suspiciously cautious behavior, almost like he's going out of his way to seem nonthreatening to Maisie. He used to be a lot more serious, sometimes coming off as tough and intimidating even though he wouldn't hurt a fly until he had to (although when he has to... that's another story). That's stopped. Now, he's funny. Like he's the same guy, David has always been pretty funny, but I don't know, he never made a show of it. There's no more vulgar jokes, nothing mean spirited. He's suddenly very careful with his words, and never speaks loudly, like he keeps his voice at a moderate to low volume at all times. No more drinking for now, that's for certain, although he still smokes marijuana on occasion, but she also does. He's not totally different, but something's changed. And if I were not very smart, I'd take the position that it was strictly platonic, but I've made my opinion quite clear. If it's platonic now, it won't be for much longer. Bet on it._

_"Hello?"_

_A quiet, high pitched voice comes from the top of the stairs to Nick's basement. Roger's eyes go wide with terror: that's Cora's voice, and he hadn't invited her here. In fact, Roger has been seeing Cora for quite awhile now. He won't let her sleep at his house, and he won't let her come to rehearsal or to any gigs, yet she stays with him. I have to wonder what's wrong with her? Does she not have any self respect? We're lucky we've even met her with how little he brings her around. Of course, she hasn't met Maisie yet, which is my theory about why Roger keeps her away. Look at his face! He looks like he's seen a bloody ghost!! I've never seen a man look so terrified for no real reason. Which means, of course, that there is a reason, and that I'm probably right about it being Maisie because his eyes keep darting between the two of them. Poor bloke is checking to see if they're eyeing one another. They are not. They have no reason to look at each other with suspicion. Relax, Mr. Onions._

_"Cora?" Roger places his bass back in its stand as she comes walking down the stairs holding a cup of coffee for him. "What are you doing here?" He tries to sound like he's happy to see her, but I think she's the only one who believes him. Everyone else looks pretty uncomfortable, almost like we all don't want any more nonsense after two years of it._

_"Surprise!" She says with this perky, sweet voice as she throws her arms around him having just placed the coffee down on a stool (the one by my keyboard that I'll obviously need to use later, but no one accused Cora of being an intellectual heavyweight...ever in her life). He stands motionless, not returning her hug for a good minute before he barely pats her on the back and pulls away from her, clearly annoyed._

_"Yeah, quite a surprise. How did you know we were going to be here?"_

_"A paper fell out of your appointment book with this address on it and I thought I'd stop by and surprise you and see your band, finally! I also really thought you could use a pick me up. You've been working so hard."_

_Oh okay, Dipsy, in other words you went through his things, found out where he'd be and trailed him here. Then you waited until it was a long enough time that you could fetch your boyfriend a beverage and appear to just have been in the neighbourhood. Good move, Nancy Drew. Brava._

_She sounds and looks so happy with a smile on her glowing, bronzed face, and I can just feel myself cringe on the inside thinking about how Roger pines for a moderately pretty chick who hates his guts, but mistreats a woman that looks like her who wants to be around him and care for him. And God, what a lack of self respect on her part, eh?_

_She must be as stupid as she looks, because any woman with half a brain would've realized she clearly wasn't wanted, and left. I feel badly for her, but it's sort of funny that she can't read the words that are written on her boyfriend's face in big, bold letters: GO HOME, YOU DUMB BIRD. I want all these dumb birds, including my own, to go home and stop distracting everyone. Not really. Amelia and Jane can stay. Maisie and Cora are both distracting._

_"Oh. Nice to see you," he says with a sour voice. She kisses him, and he gives her a peck in return, not much of a show of affection. Is she…I mean...is she really this daft? I see Roger starting to visibly sweat as she takes a seat next to the three other girls._

_"Hi, I'm Cora. I'm so happy to finally be able to come here and meet you all. Roger is really good on the bass," (stop lying, it's quite unattractive) she says to the three of them with a friendly smile. Jane, my girlfriend, isn't particularly sociable with anyone but Amelia, so she just nods, but Maisie and Amelia are very friendly in return._

_"Hi, I'm Maisie," she says, sticking her hand out for a handshake. Cora shakes her hand, and then Amelia offers hers._

_"And I'm Amelia. I'm Nick's wife. The drummer."_

_"Nice to meet you both! I'm excited."_

_Cora is too nice for Roger. She's also too airheaded for Roger, but intelligence isn't something he usually checks for, so that doesn't matter all that much. We all know Roger's only with her because she's that type of Twiggy looking bird he always dates, and she hangs onto his every word with wide eyes that you can tell aren't comprehending a thing he's saying, but she looks interested._

_I check Roger again, the stupid fucking tyrant (if I have to tune his bass for him only to have him thank me by picking me apart one more time I'm going to throw my keyboard right at his stupid horse face and walk right the fuck out of here), and his teeth are chattering. He's still sweating buckets, too. Grotty. What is he even afraid of, anyway? Does he think Cora's going to find out something he hasn't told anyone?_

_"They're about to get really loud. Sometimes we go outside so we can keep talking. Do you want to come? I know it's your first time here, and you probably want to listen, but you're welcome to join us if you like."_

_That was Maisie being so nice and welcoming to Cora, by the way, which makes this situation that much more humourous to me. I hope they become closer than she and Amelia are, and that they want to get together all the time, including and especially when Roger is around. I'd video record it: it would be too bleeding funny to watch the Scarecrow do a dance to put out his flames._

_Cora looks over at Roger, who's ignoring her to instead focus on talking to David, and she shrugs her shoulders._

_"He's been moody lately. Maybe I picked a bad time to come. Let's go outside."_

_They don't need me right now, the guys, because about 50% of the time Roger and David need to figure things out by themselves. Normally, I'd stay and listen, but this is an opportunity I cannot allow myself to pass up. This is going to be too good. I'm gonna wait a few minutes, though, so they don't think I'm coming out with them._

_"You didn't invite her?" David asks with a smile he's hiding behind his hand: he's probably laughing at Roger's misfortune too._

_"No, mate. I didn't even tell her we were going to be here."_

_With a last laugh and shake of my head I get the hell out of there before they both start playing. The girls are outside, and I can already hear them talking, so I'm just gonna stop right here where they can't see me. Jane of course is inside with her book, but I wouldn't have her any other way. I love Jane very much, and I'm going to marry her someday. That's irrelevant, but I needed to tell you._

_"Why didn't I hear anything about this? I know Roger's been busy with Syd lately, but I had no idea that… Maisie, he's never even mentioned you to me, let alone...my goodness, five days?"_

_"Yeah. I wonder why he didn't say anything. I don't really want to talk too much about it, but Roger was actually really helpful. He and I don't get along, which is probably why he never mentioned me, but he was really helpful afterwards. I'm living with David, but Roger packed up all my things from Syd's house and brought them to me."_

_"I wish he was nice like that all the time."_

_Sounds like a jealous tinge to her voice. If she can pick up from that little bit of information that she has every reason to feel jealous, I'll take back everything I said about her being stupid. I've got bad news for you, dear: Roger isn't nice to anyone like that except for Maisie and Syd, so don't get your hopes up._

_"Good luck with that, then," says Amelia, her sarcasm so obvious I can actually feel it burning my hair off, "I hate to tell you, but you should get out. You're so sweet and friendly...don't waste your time on Roger Waters. He chews up nice girls like you and spits them out."_

_What an awkward, brief laugh Cora just let out. Could she already have an inkling, a rumbling in her innards, telling her Roger is no good?_

_Sound bit of advice, though, Amelia. Finally someone with some sense besides me and Nick. That's why he married you._

_"Oh, now. Stop it. Don't tell her that. Roger's not all bad, he's just a little walled off and he's not good with feelings, but he's still with you, and it's been a long time now, so don't worry."_

_That's unexpected. If he knew Maisie was sticking her neck out for him, I wonder what that asshole would say._

_"I think she's outlasted you, and you were his longest relationship, so maybe I'm wrong."_

_There's the silence. Amelia wasn't supposed to say that, was she? I guess the idiot didn't consider the possibility that somebody would mention that his ex girlfriend was always hanging around. His ex girlfriend who he'd never mentioned before. Roger's so smart, but he's so stupid, too, just like the rest of them are so god damn bloody stupid it's coming out of their eyes._

_"Oh, you're…"_

_There's a tone to her voice: an 'a-ha' tone. A tone that is trying to make sense of some very sensitive and new information, information she wishes she had before she went into the encounter. I'll bet her pretty little perpetually confused head is spinning._

_"It was a long time ago. Doesn't even matter to anyone anymore. Don't worry! Like I said, we don't get along, anyway. Nobody mentioned it because it was just such a nothing. Anyway, I really like your lipstick. What shade is it?"_

_Yes, you two, become best friends so I can watch the dictator chase his own tail trying to protect himself._

_I'll be here waiting to laugh at it._


	2. Maisie - Cambridge, 1969 - David's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and David engage in the morning ritual they've developed as they've grown more and more comfortable with each other, and when they eat breakfast together David asks Maisie to join him on a gig that will be very pivotal for all of them.

_"Good morning…" A knock comes on the door of David's spare bedroom, and it's his deep, creamy voice._

_"Come in," I say through a wide yawn. He opens the door,a big friendly smile on his pretty face and he's holding a cup of coffee for me. I sit up in bed and start to get up to get it from him, but he brings it to me and sits down on the folding chair he moved near the bed in the few days after that he never moved out of its spot. He never moved it because he sits here every morning when he comes in and talks with me for awhile. In the past few months we haven't missed more than two of our morning talks, and the two times we did it was because I was too upset to have them. I enjoy talking with David in the morning; he's really good company._

_"Did you sleep well?"_

_I didn't. I haven't slept well since I got here, and it has nothing to do with the bed, or with David, or whatever... it's just that I can't stay asleep, ever. My nightmares wake me up several times throughout the night, and I don't know how to stop it from happening. Every time I wake up I feel so afraid, and so alone, but there's no one there to comfort me, so I have to try and do it myself, but that hasn't been very effective, either. I've always had to soothe myself, too, which is why it surprises me that I'm having so much trouble._

_"I wish," I say, and I take a sip of the hot coffee, which I really need because I can barely function I'm so exhausted from not getting a full night's sleep, or even a long period of time where I was asleep . David's face turns sympathetic and concerned, and he crosses his legs while sitting in the chair and pouts his full lips in an inquisitive way, like he's trying to think of a way to help._

_Lately, David and I have settled into a routine that is really helping me, and it also really helps that he's so kind and patient with me, and he gets my clothes from his closet for me when I need them because the few times I've tried to get them myself I've had attacks. He is so calm, too, all the time, and that's so important because the inside of my head is oftentimes so chaotic. He always wakes me up in the morning because I get so miserable and so exhausted that sometimes I can't pull myself out of bed. Then we run errands together in the afternoon when he doesn't have practice or recording, and at night we're either at gigs, with everybody else in the band circle, or at home together. I always have something to do with him, and he never leaves me on my own unless Amelia can come hang out with me while he's gone._

_"What do you think would help?"_

_Honestly, I don't want to tell him because I'm embarrassed, and I'm afraid of being rejected, but I really don't want to sleep alone. Every time I try to sleep I hear that door slamming on me and I can hear Syd frantically begging the voices in his head to please let him stop it, please let him let me out. I can actually hear and feel everything over and over again, all the hopelessness and all the fear, all the slowly brewing insanity when I couldn't find any light and lost all sense of time. I can smell the corrosive, lemony stench of cleaning supplies and can still feel the constant headache from breathing it every day. Every sound, sight, smell and touch I can't forget, and even though it sometimes happens when I'm awake, it always happens when I'm asleep, and I always wake up from it._

_"I wish I knew. Sometimes I feel like nothing will ever help. I just want to feel well rested."_

_I do know, or at least have an idea, but I don't want to give off signals and I don't want to get myself tangled up with someone else so soon. I'm afraid that if I say 'I don't want to sleep alone' he will hear 'I want to have sex', but that's not what I want. Is he really that type of guy, the type of guy that would take advantage of someone like me who's suffered so much? Probably not...he isn't Roger. He wouldn't use my vulnerability as an excuse to manipulate me into sex. David is a good man. He's good, kind and stable, and he goes out of his way (he got me a painter's mask the other day so I can still clean the house without smelling the chemicals, because I had agonized over not being able to help around the house because of my aversion to the smells). Not one time since I've been here have I felt unsafe with him in any way. When I feel unsafe, it's because I've flashed back to anything having to do with Syd and what he did to me, and how I always tried to take the best care of him that I could, but he hurt me anyway. He hurt me so badly, and all I ever did was love him. At this point, this whole relationship thing is looking like something I might want to avoid._

_"Well, you let me know if I can help in any way. Any way, alright? We need to get you back on a regular sleep schedule or you'll get sick. Anyway, I was thinking…maybe it would be good to maybe have Nick and Amelia round today. Or do you want to do something else?"_

_"We should have them here if you want. We don't get to see them much without everyone else."_

_I pull the covers off myself, but forget that I've only worn a long t-shirt with no pants. Luckily, my private bits are covered, but my legs are all out there. I watch him look them over, but then turn his head away politely, extinguishing any sign of a spark that may have been lit in his eyes. He crosses his arms over his chest, and stares out the window. I kind of like that he's going out of his way not to look: it's like he's directing his gaze straight out the window on purpose, and that's such a relief. It feels so normal. So ... decent. I feel like I can really breathe lately, sometimes._

_Embarrassed, I cover my legs again, and he turns his face back toward me after I've concealed them. We share a long look for a few moments, but I feel none of the sexual energy coming from him that I always felt from Roger. There's something there, but it's not anything like I've ever felt, and although I don't know what to make of it I don't feel threatened by it. This happens to us sometimes: we get caught in this loop of looking at one another and kind of latching on to one another's thoughts, and then we both get disturbed by it, and it kind of dissolves into silence. I don't know how, but I think I know what he's thinking, or at least I feel like I could guess if I tried._

_"Are you okay?," he asks, "You seem a little tongue tied."_

_He smiles his warm, friendly and comforting smile at me, and I do feel a little tongue tied, but I won't tell him that. Besides, it's not just me... he's tongue tied, too. Just as tongue tied as me, in fact, and I know because we've both started to giggle a bit._

_"Yeah, I just have some trouble getting my thoughts out sometimes. You know how it is when your brain has words, but your mouth just can't make them happen."_

_"Oh, I understand. Believe me, Maisie," he says with some seriousness in his voice, "there's so many things that I'd say if I knew how."_

_A few moments of silence pass between us, a few of those awkward moments, but eventually I break the all too familiar pattern of silence that's settled._

_"I think I wanna get dressed, but I'll meet you in the kitchen. What do you want for breakfast?"_

_"You're not making me breakfast. You did it yesterday. It's my turn. What do you want for breakfast?"_

_We settle on pancakes because I'm in the mood to eat food that's bad for me... maybe it'll make me feel better. It does, actually, and I make sure I tell him so._

_"That was exactly what I needed, David. Thank you."_

_We spend a few more moments in silence, and I get that feeling that I keep getting, and that I've been getting every time we've talked since that first day at Syd's house, the day with the ladder: like I know him a lot more intimately than I actually do, like we have known one another for years even though we haven't...not really. These moments of silence aren't awkward, they're...intense. Strange. Exhilarating, but not awkward. His smile breaks the weird way we're looking at one another, and I stand up to clear the plates from the table and wash them. That's the system we have: the person who cooks doesn't do the dishes. It really works very well, and it's the most help I've ever had with housework since I moved away from my family and their houses full of staff. Roger never helped me, and he'd get angry if I ever let anything go because he's such a neat freak, and Syd was simply too sick to help me with anything, so in every other living situation I've had I've been the one to take care of everything. I'm not used to having any kind of help, and so when he insisted on cooking or doing the dishes the first time I didn't know what to make of it. I wasn't sure if he was playing a joke on me. I remember the way he kind of laughed at me when I got upset at him for making fun of me. He wasn't upset at all even though I got pretty defensive. It upset me at first when he laughed me off, but then he told me he was only laughing because he couldn't believe how shocked I was by the idea of having help._

_"Do you remember the gig we were supposed to have in France that we had to postpone?"_

_"Yeah," I say with what I know is a tinge of guilt to my voice. I do feel guilty that they had to postpone that gig on my behalf, but David kept telling me no one minded because they were able to reschedule it. Still, I worry a lot that they might all be tiring of me. I feel like I'm maybe more trouble than I'm worth. David laughs when I say that, too._

_"Well, it's next month, which is great because it'll be right in the middle of summer. It'll be warm, the beach will be gorgeous, and I really want you to come with me. All the girls but Cora are coming."_

_Of course Cora isn't coming. We all hate to watch the way Roger treats his girlfriend, and although I told her awhile back that he wasn't so bad I totally didn't mean it, I was just trying to make her feel better because the poor doll just seemed so happy and excited to even be around Roger. I probably should have told her the truth: get out while you can because he's just using you,and when he gets tired of you he'll just throw you out of his house without saying goodbye. Cora is really, really nice, and even though I've only met her twice now I can tell she's a good and kind person, the exact type of person a leech like Roger latches onto and sucks dry. At this point she's been with him longer than I was, and I'd say that I had some hope for them as a couple, and that Roger might have changed, but I don't actually have hope. Maybe they'll stay together, but that doesn't mean Roger will ever treat her right. In fact, if we are being honest with one another, he treats her way worse than he treated me, at least in public. Maybe he's nice to her in private; I don't know._

_As for this gig in St. Tropez I am really excited to go and to get out of England for awhile, and leave this place far behind me. Maybe that will be the key to my being able to relax, getting away from here._

_"Yeah, I really want to come. Thanks for inviting me," I say barely above a whisper, and I can tell I'm smiling just like he is. He looked away too, I can tell, because he's got the same smile on his face. I don't know why we both have a hard time. David and I are both pretty shy, I guess. He told me that he'd never met someone shyer than he is until he met me besides Jane, but I don't know if it's simply shyness with her._

_"Well, yeah, I mean it would be horrid of me to go to the beach and just leave you home on your own, wouldn't it?" He winks at me, and I know he's poking fun at Roger, which makes me feel good because someone should always poke fun at him._

_"Probably, and it would be even worse if I pretended not to mind."_

_"You're cheeky. Poor Cora." David laughs and shakes his head. "Poor, pretty, sad Cora."_

_I stick my tongue out at him in a rare show of bravery. I rarely tease anybody._

_"That's your type, huh? The beauty queen?"_

_David's cheeks flush red with color, and he runs his fingers through his hair as he laughs at me again. This time it seems like I made him pretty nervous, and I'd feel bad about it if he seemed upset._

_"Ha. Well, look... Cora's very pretty, but no, she isn't my type."_

_"What's your type then, David?"_

_"I don't have conversations like this," he says with a smile and another nervous laugh, "this is a trap, Miss Maisie Wells, and I know it."_

_"No, no, David Gilmour, you don't get off so easy."_

_"Fine. Do you want the truth?"_

_"That's why I asked."_

_He stands up, walks toward me and rumples my hair, and I watch as he smiles at me and wrinkles his nose._

_"Maybe some other time."_

_I watch David walk away like it's nothing. I want to be mad at him, but I can't. I would get so annoyed if anyone else did that to me!_

_"Wait a second!"_

_He turns his head, his long dirty blonde hair sweeping over his broad shoulders, and his blue eyes gleaming. The sunlight dances off of him like he's made from it, but maybe I'm imagining it._

_"Hm?"_

_I stare at him and squint my eyes, trying to be playful, but I probably don't make any sense. He's gonna think I'm a total loony._

_"Never mind."_

_I turn around, and I I smirk to myself while I take my time scrubbing and drying the dishes._

_He doesn't come back, but it's okay: for the first time in such a long time, things feel normal. I don't think I've felt so normal since Gloria and I used to spend our summer holidays together. Normal is the word. A lot of people scoff at 'normal', but that's only because they've had too much of it. The last time I felt this safe was quite a few years ago._

_David is such a good friend._


	3. David - Cambridge, 1969 - David's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David pores over the events of the day until he's interrupted by Maisie having a nightmare. She bravely asks him for a favor that will test them both, but he reassures her that he'll be able to pass the test.

_Today was amazing. Every day is amazing. I feel as if lately things feel right at home rather than 'just okay' the way they have been for years before she came to stay with me, and I don't think she even notices. And that's not a bad thing: I'm not sure I want her to notice right now. I'm terrified of my feelings becoming obvious, and thus making her feel pressured, so I go out of my way to be platonic, and respectful. The last thing I want right now is for Maisie to feel like I've invited her to stay here because I have intentions. I suppose I'd be lying, however, if I said that I don't have any at all, I just don't want that to be something she can tell right now. It's been entirely too short of a time for Maisie to be thinking of another relationship, and I like her so much that I don't want to waste the opportunity, or do anything at the wrong time, or even before I have some sort of an idea about how likely any feelings I admit are to be reciprocated. Keep in mind though, this is down the line somewhere. It's still too soon. I won't feel comfortable openly pursuing anything beyond the bounds of friendship until I get a clear sense that she's recovered enough to be able to trust someone else._

_I keep wondering if I should urge her to go to a doctor. Is that a step too far? Sometimes I feel like it's not really my business to tell her what she should do, but her nightmares are heinous. She also has this terrible aversion to the smell of cleaner chemicals, and has trouble being in any kind of enclosed space (we avoid lifts whenever possible, and luckily I have a car because the train might be difficult also) without panicking. She seems unwell, and I'd like her to see a doctor because I can only help so much. I suppose I'm going to have to talk to her about that, aren't I? That's going to be such an awkward conversation to have, but Maisie and I seem to be getting very well acquainted with awkwardness between the two of us._

_Not that it's a bad awkward, though, we just have this...thing, for lack of a better word. Maybe there's a better word that I'm too scared to use so early on: a connection. I feel like I understand her, or maybe like her energy is very familiar to me. I feel like I've been living with her for years, that's how naturally it all seems to flow between us. Each day one cooks, and the other cleans up, and we trade off for dinner. Each evening when we return home we say goodnight and return to our separate rooms, and I go to bed ready and waiting to do it all again the next day._

_Not that you were totally unaware, but I sometimes have trouble keeping my temper. That's another reason having her around works: I do not allow myself to get angry around her because she can't handle it. I've found it's become easier to keep a lid on what may have been a trigger for me previously. Not anything she's doing, just...you know, Roger. I'd say a good portion of the time if I want to explode it's because of something Roger did. I'm glad her being here is having this effect on me, because I really don't actually want to go off on him, but for God's sake he makes it so bloody hard not to._

_Anyhow, there's much more pleasant things to talk about tonight rather than him and what he's been up to. I'm sure he talks enough about himself to you that you don't need to hear about him from me, too. Let's talk about what Maisie and I did today._

_After breakfast we met up with Nick and Amelia to do laundry and have lunch. Amelia and Maisie, and Nick and I got lost in our separate conversations, but even though I wasn't talking to her I felt like I was acutely aware of Maisie's presence next to me the entire time as if my mind can feel when she's with me or something, I don't know. I can't break my concentration on this, can't you tell? I feel obsessed, but it's so strange to feel this way with another person._

_We spent a few hours with Nick and Amelia at a cafe after that, where Rick and Jane joined us, but after awhile she and I left, came home and had dinner. And that was it: that was our entire day. Maybe it sounds boring to you, but Maisie needs boring. I think boring is the best thing I can give her now, and based on how calm she seems to be most of the time when she's not trying to sleep, I think my feelings about that are correct. No one needs boring like Maisie does, especially after what she's had to go through. The first few days were the hardest: those were the days where we were trying our hardest to settle into a routine, and I was trying very hard to help, but wasn't sure what to do. Sometimes I'm still not. All that i know for sure is that Maisie needs calm at all times, and that is what I try my best to provide for her._

_So I'm lying in bed now getting ready to pass out and wake up tomorrow and do my whole routine over again, the routine that's got me as excited and nervous as it's got her relieved and settled. I'm thinking a lot about the beach next month especially because I'm nervous as hell about it. It was hard to ask her to come...not really, it was more difficult to work up the courage to ask, but once I did that the words flowed just fine. It was really cute, though, wasn't it: the way she said yes? Wasn't that just so cute? That's my absolute most favorite thing about Maisie... she's so god damned fucking cute that I can't stand it. A lot of the girls that hang around us are just a little too crazy for my taste, and it makes sense, because those girls are the ones that try to get close to blokes who play music, the wild ones. I'm not going to lie to you, I've enjoyed their company before, but I wasn't lying to Maisie when I said that girls like that aren't my type. I just wouldn't answer her because answering that question with 'you're my type' like I wanted to (she's my type right down to the brown eyes) would just cross a line I'm not ready to cross right now._

_It's the beach that's got me thinking, for sure, because I want to use it as an opportunity to bring us closer, but to still be platonic enough that she won't feel rushed. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do, but I'll do something that will make her smile, and it'll be great. I know it will._

_St. Tropez is quite a romantic place, you know: it's the kind of place where anything can happen. We're all heading down there two days early so we can have some time to fuck around before we have to get serious about the music. It would be a crime to drag all the girls out there only to leave them to have fun all on their own._

_I'm lost in thought, going over every idea I can grab at that'll make her see how important she is to me without being overbearing or too obvious, like maybe I'll take her for a walk on the beach after sunset, or right at the break of dawn for the sunrise. Maybe I'll buy her some flowers or a piece of jewelry, or something, but nah... that's too obvious. Or maybe I could…_

_That's when I hear a bloodcurdling scream coming from the guest room. It's a horrendous, terrible, inhuman shriek: a desperate wail, and I know exactly what's happening. She's never screamed this loud in the middle of the night before, and so I'm pretty sure that this time the nightmares must be worse than normal. I usually let her be, because I'm not sure how involved she wants me to be, and I really don't want to step on her toes or make her feel smothered, but this time I can't just sit on the sidelines and listen to her in so much anguish._

_I burst through the doorway and find Maisie in tears, her face lit by the hallway light that I switched on. She's awake, and she's hysterical: hyperventilating, sweating and sobbing so loud I'm afraid others might hear her. Carefully, I approach her bedside, and I pull my chair up to sit next to her._

_"Hey, Mays," I say softly, stopping just short of reaching out to touch her shoulder. Maybe that's something I should ask for consent for before I do it, and now isn't a good time. She goes right on sobbing, and falls over on to her side, curling up into a fetal position with her head buried in her hands. "Are you having bad nightmares tonight? Can I do anything?"_

_I watch her body shaking out of control as she struggles to answer; I can hear her trying to speak : "I-i-i-..." She squeezes out through sobs. I wait with all my patience for her._

_"Take a deep breath, okay? Just take a long, slow deep breath in, hold it, and let it out just as slow. Can you do that with me?" I start to breathe in slow and deep, filling my lungs with air, hoping she'll follow my rhythm. I hold my breath for a few seconds, and then slowly let it out my mouth. She's struggling to breathe along with me, but I can tell that she's trying. Her breaths are labored and broken by hyperventilating, but I'm impressed by all the fight in her as she tries like hell to just take in one deep inhale. "Come on, Maisie. You can do it. Just a few deep breaths."_

_We practice breathing a few more times, and I can't seem to get her to be able to breathe, so I run to my bedroom and get my marijuana stash. I swear I'm not trying to get her high for any bad reason, okay? I just know that this helps me calm down, and I'm at a bit of a loss for what else to do. When I return she's reverted to her previous state even though I'd managed to get her the slightest bit calmer before I left._

_"I'm going to pack my pipe for us, okay? You can have the first hit. Do you think you can try to breathe for me first though? I don't want you to choke when you try to breathe this in." I place everything down on her night table, and decide I'm gonna take the chance and rub her back a little...I don't know what else to do. Almost immediately upon feeling my touch her sobs begin to slow, and soon she's able to take a breath in, but can't hold it. This goes on for a few minutes, and I'm still breathing along with her, guiding her rhythm, until she's able to complete a whole breath cycle. "That's right. See? You're okay. You're safe. There's nothing here that's going to hurt you."_

_Finally, after what seems like an eternity, Maisie's calm, and though she's still shedding some soft tears she can breathe normally, and so I hand the pipe to her and she lights it, taking in a deep inhale of the thick white smoke, holding it, and blowing it out just like we practiced before. When she's finished she hands it to me, and we smoke until there's nothing left._

_"Thank you," she whispers as she curls back into the fetal position._

_"Don't thank me. It's the least I can do."_

_"David, I think I might need something, but I'm so afraid to ask…"_

_"Tell me anything you need, and I'll do anything in my power to make it happen." This time she turns her head to look at me, and I gaze into her eyes, her beautiful, sad brown eyes puffy from all the crying._

_"I just... I don't want to sleep alone, but I've been so afraid that if I told you that, you'd... you'd think I was…"_

_Now I understand._

_"You thought that I'd think you wanted to have sex with me."_

_She seems stunned by my bluntness, and she might be afraid that I'm offended: I'm not offended, not at all. I understand why she'd think that...after all, at least one of her ex boyfriends would consider this the perfect time to take advantage of her with his own orgasm as his ultimate end, and though I have nothing positive to say for Syd Barrett right now, I think we both know I am not speaking of him._

_"Well, yes, that's what I thought. It sounds like...you know, I guess...I feel like a lot of boys would think that's what I meant, but I really just mean that…"_

_"I know what you mean. You mean exactly what you said: no more, and no less. I'm never going to assume that you mean something you don't say, okay? That's not how I operate. I don't believe in signals - if you want something from me all you have to do is tell me what it is, and I won't assume you mean anything other than what you're telling me."_

_"Thank you. I am not used to that. I'm not used to any of this. Please be patient. I've never really been cared for except by my nanny and a few times with...him."_

_"Let's not talk about that. We've just got you calm. So...do you want me to stay here, or do you want to come to my room?"_

_"I don't want to sleep here after the nightmares."_

_I don't want to lead you to believe that because I will be nothing but respectful and trustworthy in this situation that it will be easy for me to do so. I don't want it to be that way, but I'm so attracted to her, so into her, that it will be quite an undertaking sleeping next to her without any touch. It's how it's going to be for now, but it's hard. Remember that day I held her? After she fell off the ladder? That's in my head pretty much all the time, so this is going to be a challenge, but I'm ready._

_"Come on, then," I say, and she gets up out of bed and gives me a sad look that she shifts to the floor._

_"I'm sorry if this is weird."_

_Weird? Not weird. Not in a bad way, anyway._

_"It's not weird for me, I promise."_

_We walk down the hall to my room, and I let her choose which side of the bed she wants to sleep on, and then it happens...I lie down beside her, and talk about being acutely aware of someone's presence! Her presence is so obvious to me, here in my bed as she is, and for Christ's sake this is going to be such a battle._

_It doesn't feel bad. It feels so good. It feels so god damn good to have her so close to me._

_"You're my best friend," she whispers in a sleepy voice, and before I know it she's fallen back into sleep._

_Well, it's a start, and a pretty damn good one too._


	4. Roger - Cambridge, 1969 - Roger's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger, eager to get his sexual needs met, gladly accepts Cora's advances, but finds that he has a lot of difficulty staying in the fantasy he needs to stay in in order to make the situation work. When he finally finds that he's able to fully immerse himself, he makes a mistake that he's afraid he's going to regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW!

_"Hey, Roger."_

_Cora comes up behind me in my study, and her arms creep around my shoulders from behind. She presses her hands into my chest and down my stomach, her long delicate fingers traveling down my body and finally she hooks a finger into the buttonhole of my trousers. I didn't want to spend any time with her tonight, but I told her she could stay. I guess she got lonely. I'm not an idiot though: there's no way I'm going to turn this down. This is all I bring to our relationship._

_"Come sit in my lap, baby," I growl at her, and she walks slowly around in front of me, her shirt mostly unbuttoned and her firm bronze breasts spilling over the cups of her bra. She drags her arm around my back and down my arm, over my chest as she crawls into my lap and spreads her legs over me, straddling me. I slide my hands over her small, tight ass and I really like the way it feels at first, but then I can feel my erection start to flicker, so I move my hands somewhere that won't feel too different. They've got similar prominent collarbones and similar hipbones, but Cora has less..._

_I suppose collarbone it is._

_I slide my hands up over her slender hips and her waist that doesn't really curve much and... collarbone. At least if I start there it will make everything else easier. So I slip my hands into the valleys of her collarbone and draw her lips toward mine, and I close my eyes._

_Now I'm able to feel the softness I need to feel, as I've closed my eyes and gotten away. Cora's lips move in time with my own, but I don't feel her lips. I slide my hands up over her full, clothed breasts, but I feel soft handfuls. I peel her shirt off, and her brassiere, and I allow myself to feel creamy, alabaster skin and small, pert little nipples...pink, perfect ones. My lips and my tongue circle them, the tiny little erasers I feel against my tongue. With my hand in between her legs I feel lush, bushy vines guarding a perfect little secret in between two velvety lips. I can hear Cora moaning her little, girlish moans...those high pitched, breathy 'ooooh yesss'es and 'yes, baby's. I slide a finger into a tight, warm hole and open my eyes only for a minute when the illusion breaks and I feel Cora's pussy again, and that's not as nice...so I close them again, you see, and I bring myself back. I feel that tight little pussy again, and I pick up big stalky Cora and carry her into the bedroom, and I toss her onto my bed. I shut my eyes again to erase the long, lean willow body from my mind and I can see a sexy, full figure with a very slim, corseted waist and generous, womanly hips. Toned, athletic but voluptuous thighs._

_I crawl on top of her and I push my cock deep inside that warm, tight hole while I kiss the full pouted lips and high cheekbones and prominent nose, and run my hands through a mop of loose, wild dark curls. I push myself deeper into her hole, and I kiss her everywhere at every speed and in every way. And it all becomes so real… Cora's not Cora anymore, she's Maisie, but she's also…it can't be. I can't possibly think of him, not now, and the two of them..._

_I've never felt so much of my feelings all at once. Now that I feel both of them here, I would know nothing other than what it would be like to be lost inside them both, to share my love with them…._

_But I can't think of them, because thinking of both of them means thinking of him, and I don't...I don't think of Syd. So I don't: I think of her, only of her, although my body still longs, and my heart still longs, I can't think of it again. Those feelings are far away now... they're nothing but shadows of what might have been and never was...and he and I are both better off for it never having been._

_So all I feel now is Maisie's beautiful, soft lips on mine, and I get so lost in this lie I have to tell myself that I lose control, and I forget who I'm really with because all I can feel and smell and taste is her, and I can only imagine the way it would feel to tell her how I feel, how much I love her...and it just...it just leaks from my mouth like a slow line of vomit._

_"I love you," I blurt out, I whisper in her ear, and that's when I shoot my eyes open. Fuck. I hadn't said that yet to Cora. Fuck._

_The whole illusion is fucking shattered now that I've come to my senses and realize what I've done just now. I can't cum now that I've gone and done something so fucking stupid like this. But she's fucking pulling me close now, a warm smile on her face, and she's kissing me, her lips dancing with mine...a slow dance I dream of doing with Maisie's lips. Damn it. Now she turns completely back into Cora, almost like she's a beautiful carriage that turns back into a boring old pumpkin. And yet, to be honest with you...I know that objectively, Cora is the carriage, but I suppose I prefer to satisfy all of my senses rather than simply just my eyes, and a pumpkin is useful for more than just looking nice. It tastes delicious, it smells nice, it reminds one of home and autumn and warmth, and it's also quite pretty to look at. That's the funniest part of all this though, isn't it? So many princes would die to have the beautiful carriage, but I don't care for it._

_"I love you too, Roger!" Damn it. "I'm so happy! I don't think I've ever loved anyone the way I love you."_

_Fuck. What the bloody hell have I done to myself? And to her? I don't love her; I barely even like her, and what's fucking wrong with me? I'm here with this gorgeous, nice girl that really loves me, and I don't even fucking care a hide nor hair for her at all!_

_"I'm terribly sorry, but I need to step out to the toilet briefly, and it's urgent. I'll be right back, love, I promise."_

_I kiss Cora as she is, with her cute little Nordic nose and her ice blue eyes, and her long, thin lips...golden blonde hair and long, delicate body, but I only feel interested for a few seconds before I just feel bored. What's wrong with me? It's dreadful to be in love, and especially to be in love with someone who you cannot have._

_I slam the door and crumple to my knees, and it's partially because I can't believe I've done this (I do not love Cora) and also because I couldn't forget him even though I usually have such a handle on it. I thought of her, and it was real, but I saw him too, and only one of them is acceptable to me, but I still love him. And I love her. I love them both, I pine for them both, but I've taken all my feelings for him and stuffed them into Maisie, along with everything else I've ever felt for her. I can't believe this has happened. There's no way she's stupid enough to believe me, but I'm also not stupid enough to break the illusion I've just given her._

_I mean, honestly._

_All the other girlfriends (and one who isn't even a girlfriend) got asked to come to France, Cora, and you know it, and you know I didn't ask you, but you believed me when I said that? Are you an idiot?_

_I'm going to hide in here awhile to collect myself after whatever that was, but I'll apologise to her later. Maybe she won't walk out when I tell her I'm sorry. That would be the most favorable outcome. I really don't want to be forced to deal with her bad emotions on top of my own; I haven't the energy for all that. I can't comfort Cora as well as myself... that's simply asking for too much. The best thing for all of us would be for her to have consoled herself while I was in here, and then for us to just be able to put it behind us. Perhaps we'll go back to having sex, and we'll laugh, and we'll forget all about it. Then I can just pretend this never happened. I won't say it again if I can help it, at all, and then she won't make an issue out of it, and we can forget it. That's not realistic, is it? If she is upset she's liable to stay upset, and then I'm going to have to do something about it. And I won't be able to get away with never saying it again, you know, because that's how women are. Open the bloody floodgates and they'll never let you close them._


	5. Cora - Cambridge, 1969 - The Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora wants to be friends with Maisie, who is the only person she finds to be sympathetic to Roger in the group of people she's found herself a part of. She sadly wonders why she isn't allowed to go to France with the others, but when she meets Maisie and David in the park her mood is lightened as she has an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go easy on Cora, she's much more than she seems~

_I don't understand him. I feel like he's so hot and cold with me all the time, like sometimes he's so cold I swear I'm getting ready to leave, and I get so close to leaving, but it's like he figures it out just as I'm getting ready to tell him I'm finished with him. Every time I march over there with the words ready to spill right out of my mouth: "I'm leaving you. There's a nice boy at my church who really likes me, and I think I want to get to know him. You don't pay me very much attention, do you?" That's when he acts all sweet again, somehow, and he pulls me into the house and he kisses me so lovingly, and he's romantic and emotional. I buy into it every time too because he seems so real. He might be difficult to get along with, but I know he loves me. He has to. It's just his personality that he's kind of closed off and cold, but underneath it all he's not like that. He doesn't act it often, but he's really very sensitive underneath, you know? He's hurting. He's complicated._

_I know that he ran off yesterday, but I don't take it personally! I know that Roger is so scared to get close to people... I'm his most serious girlfriend, you know! This is all so new to him, so I forgive him for making these kinds of mistakes. I wonder how many girls he's said those words to? Do you think he says them to every girl?_

_Do you think he's said them to Maisie?_

_Is that strange, that he dated her? I don't think so, right? I mean, Amelia and Maisie both said that the two of them really don't get along at all and only tolerate each other because of Syd, but now that Syd isn't around anymore they don't have anything to do with each other, right? That makes sense to me. I don't think it's weird at all that he never mentioned it either because it makes sense that he wouldn't want to talk about somebody he really doesn't like._

_I know Roger loves me because he's different when we're alone than he is with others around. He's sweet when we're alone...sometimes, anyway. Not all the time. It's when he isn't sweet that I start thinking I might want to leave him, but then he goes right back to being sweet again. And then he's not sweet anymore. And then he is. But then he's not, but then he is ...I don't understand him he's so confusing! I wish sometimes that he was nice all the time the way he was when he brought Maisie her clothes from Syd's house she even said he folded them! Imagine that: my Roger folding clothes! I fold all his clothes, the lazy boy. In fact, when I'm here I do everything, but he's so finicky about the way he wants it done, and it's almost like he expects it of me? Maybe I'm not seeing things correctly. I try to tell myself that when it comes to Roger anything is possible. He's so hard to read that I could be thinking something he does means one thing when it really means another! He can't help it though, because he's an artist. They're weird like that. His friends are weird too, well except David. David is pretty normal, but that's not usual for a musician. They're all weird and aloof like Roger, or that's what he said. He said he isn't doing anything that his friends wouldn't do, but Nick and Rick bring their girls to more things than Roger brings me to, and Maisie gets to go to everything even though she's not dating anybody._

_Why do I have to stay home, and they get to go? I don't get it. I'd at least appreciate being able to hang out with Maisie even if Roger couldn't find time for me, and I expect that he wouldn't. Amelia is kind of a know it all with the way she talks about my boyfriend, but Maisie tries her best to be nice to me about him and not just preach to me about how I should leave him. Plus she's really nice and funny, and really smart, and I want to do her makeup and dress her up and just be best friends! It's not that I don't think she's pretty, but she could be so beautiful if she let me dress her up a little more and let me make her look more womanly and sexy and less bookish (not always though, sometimes she wears hippie clothes and stuff). I want to put her makeup on and style her hair (she does a good job with it though) and do her nails. Wouldn't that just be so nice?_

_Do you really think Roger loves me? I mean, I think he loves me, but then I guess I don't understand why he wants to be alone so much, or doesn't want me to be here that much. But sometimes when we're alone he is so loving to me._

_I am so, so sad that I can't go to France._

_My goodness, how I do go on. I've been on a walk this early afternoon and so lost in talking with you that I've missed the boutique I was looking for and wandered into the park like a dodo._

_Oh my! Maisie and David are here sitting in the grass! That's so funny because remember I was just talking to you about Maisie, and she's actually here! Who would have thought!_

_She looks up and smiles wide at me and stands up, and I love her cute high waisted denim shorts and her shiny little red hair ribbon. When she runs to me it feels so nice, I feel like I do so much time waiting around for Roger to have time for me that I haven't made many girlfriends or kept any of the ones I had._

_"Hey, Cora! How are you?"_

_It's so nice that Maisie is so friendly with me. I would be upset if you told Roger, but maybe I sometimes think I stay with him a little bit so I can be friends with her._

_"I'm doing really good. It's so nice to run into you like this. Hi, David." I lean over and look at him, and he smiles at me. David's so bloody beautiful, my god. Why didn't I try to talk to him? He wouldn't talk to me, that's why. He couldn't even look at me, but I mean it's so obvious he likes Maisie anyway._

_"Come sit down. You might as well, since you're here."_

_We sit down on the grass next to David, and Maisie collapses on her back and gazes up at the blue sky, and she's following the clouds. I do the same thing because I want to see what she's looking at._

_"Do you think that one kind of looks like a butterfly?" I ask her, pointing to this fluffy, funny looking butterfly wing cloud, and she laughs._

_"Yeah, I guess it does. I think your hair looks positively groovy today, sister."_

_Maisie laughs again, and I look at her pretty hair long all spread out on the grass, and I really like her hair too._

_"You have really pretty curls and I think it's so cool how you know how to keep them looking so good!"_

_"Thanks. I use sprays and conditioners and I don't wash my hair too often. By the way, I totally heard something juicy about Jane from Amelia the other day, and I probably shouldn't tell you, but I can if you want and you won't tell anyone."_

_It's nice that she wants to talk to me about private stuff. Like maybe we could be friends after all. I really need a friend nowadays when Roger is being so distant and all I do is wait around for him to give me anything at all, I mean I deserve to have somebody treat me nice and actually make me...you know, I never get to get my release as they say!! But I mean I also deserve a girl to be my friend, don't I? And she's so fun to hang out with._

_"I promise I won't say a single word to anybody."_

_"Alright. So Amelia told me that she found out someone saw Jane downtown kissing this woman. And then Amelia told Nick, who told Rick…" she takes an exaggerated breath in, haha. That's pretty funny, the way she tells stories. "...and Rick knew, and it doesn't bother him one bit! He said she just needs a girlfriend so he doesn't feel threatened by that. Can you believe that?"_

_"Roger would never let me have another boyfriend, but she was with a woman?"_

_"Yeah, apparently a really beautiful older woman, too. I had no idea that Jane...you know. Went that way. What do you think about it?"_

_I don't see why a thing like two ladies kissing would bother anybody, really._

_"It doesn't really mean anything different to me, I guess, other than that I don't understand it, but who needs to bother with that anyway? It's all the same if you ask me."_

_"I think so too. Do you want to know a secret then?I need to tell somebody, and the only other person who knows is my best friend back in the States."_

_Oh my goodness. She's sort of cupping her hands around her eyes like binoculars and looking at different clouds than before, and she crosses one leg over the other._

_"If you want to tell me, sure."_

_"So like... I'm the same as Jane. You know. I like both. I don't mean that I'm trying to flirt with you or anything, but I wanted to tell someone, and you’re a really nice girl who I like talking to."_

_Wow. I'm so touched and it's so cool that she is really trusting me with this, like I have no idea why she'd trust me with this but I really like it!_

_"Oh, wow. Thank you for telling me about that! I think that's totally normal, sometimes I think other girls are really pretty. Like you are just so pretty Maisie! I'm sorry if it's rather awkward of me to say but I really would like to maybe put some makeup on you and dress you up maybe! If we could? If you want to?"_

_Oh, she's staying pretty quiet now. Maybe I shouldn't have asked her that..I wasn't trying to make her feel ugly. She’s totally not ugly at all but you know what I was trying to say and maybe she doesn't understand. She shakes her head side to side like she’s thinking about it, and I really hope she’s not offended because that would make me so anxious. I have a lot of anxiety about talking to other girls because I mean, I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I know what I look like, and I feel like other girls don’t like me because of how I look, but they’re missing out because I think I am a really good friend and a nice person._

_“Yeah, why not? I like the way I dress and do myself up, but I wouldn’t mind getting another person’s opinion. I like the way you dress and do yourself up, also, so I trust you I guess.”_

_“Do you wanna go right now? Or later? I don’t know what you and David are doing, but Roger is coming to my house later, so maybe you and David could come over and you and I can do that?”_

_Maisie holds her index finger up and turns to David, who’s strumming his acoustic guitar now (I love it when Roger does that!)._

_“David?”_

_He looks up, and I see the way he smiles at her. There’s a sweet, warm light in his eyes, almost like the sun, but his eyes are so blue it makes them look exactly like the sky today. I wish Roger looked at me like that. Do you think he ever will? Sometimes it looks like he comes close._

_“Hm?”_

_“Do you want to go to Cora’s tonight? Roger will be there, and Cora wants to…” she stops, and she giggles… “give me a makeover!”_

_David’s smile gets even brighter, if you can believe it. I can’t believe it. I’m really jealous, too, I guess, because I want Roger to be more like that, and I just don’t think he ever will._

_“Yeah, I think we can do that. We didn’t have any plans for tonight, anyway.”_

_This is going to be the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I’m so glad that I finally get to have a normal friendship with another girl and get away from not having anyone but Roger._


	6. Maisie - Cambridge, March 2006 - in the car/Syd and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and Syd, back from a troubling visit to the doctor, share a movie and some snacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're enjoying this new work so far. Sorry I only uploaded five at once, I just want to pace this right so I've got enough material to keep going. Feel free to leave feedback!

These are the worst, the days where we have to go to the doctor. It’s never good news, and Syd tries so hard to stay positive, but I can see that it haunts him all day afterward. It always does, and why wouldn’t it? I never know how to help, or at least I feel like I don’t know, but Syd always brightens up by bedtime if we’ve done something fun beforehand, so that’s what I feel like we should do now. I’ve gotten him a snack and rented a movie, but I wouldn’t tell him what it was because I’m pretty sure that he’ll be happy having it be a surprise. I couldn’t live with the thought of ruining that because his unbridled joy when he’s pleasantly surprised is worth keeping it from him. He’s my ray of sun, and I hate to see him so sullen. I would do anything to make him smile again. It kills me to see him like this. I held his hand the entire ride home, and we listened to some classical music because that always relaxes him when we have to take these trips.

I hate these trips. God, do I hate them. He’s always unhappy in the morning getting out of bed, and I can barely get out of bed in the morning myself because I’m such a night owl, so it takes a lot out of me to be able to get breakfast ready, and get his medications ready...but I’m not complaining. I’m really not. I am so happy, you have no idea. Things are so simple, and quiet, and secure. There’s no frills; it’s just Syd and I together at home, and no one bothers us ever, and we’re happy just to be quiet together. I’ve grown to feel so at home here with him. It’s such a relief. I love to live with my friends, but we all gab very much, and it can feel like a madhouse sometimes. I haven’t had the peace of mutual silence since Gloria and I lived together by ourselves. Syd and I do talk often, but when we don’t the silence is almost as sweet as the words we have to say to each other. 

It’s true that the news was worse today than it has been before when I’ve taken him to the doctor. 

(I just need to take a second to point out that I’m nearing the end of my rope with my sister in law, and I don’t want to talk about it yet, but trust me I am deeply unhappy with her, and when you find out why you’ll understand. And you’ll agree with me.) 

Anyway, the news was definitely worse today. I mean, it’s never good, but...it isn’t helpful that the doctor keeps saying things like 'it’s a miracle you’re still alive'. Great idea, doctor: tell the man who’s so very sensitive and suffers from quite a great deal of anxiety that it’s a miracle he’s alive. He’s aware he hasn’t got long, and all that kind of talk does is make him feel like it’s going to happen tomorrow, or in six hours, or on the ride home. As soon as we’re married I’m going to talk to that doctor. I can’t allow him to make Syd so anxious. I understand he’s being honest, but some people can’t handle that kind of anxiety, and my baby is one of those people. 

It’ll be okay once he sees what I got for us, though. I can’t believe I’m so excited over it, it’s just a movie, but I know how it will make him feel, and that’s what gets me so excited. I got us Peter Pan. Don’t laugh, it’s very special to us. We were so silly when we were young, but even though Syd’s nearing the end, he is still so young, so we are still very silly. He’s going to love this, I know he is, and I’m so excited. I just want him to smile again. 

I pull up in front of the house and when Syd gets out I walk toward him and slide my arm through his. He doesn’t need me to help him walk, not at all, I just want him to know I’m there. I can see in his face how sad he is, and how scared he is. It’s hard for him to think and talk about death, as it would be for anybody, but it’s more of a reality for him than for most of the people I know. The topic hits very hard because of that, and so we don’t talk about it ever unless he brings it up. I don’t want to push him: Rosemary does that enough for everybody. 

“Thanks, Maisie,” he says under his breath. It feels like all the air has been taken out of him, he’s so defeated and somber.

“Cheer up, baby. I got you a surprise when I went into the store.” He looks at me with those breathtaking, soulful brown eyes, and I get lost inside him until he smiles, and then I get lost in that…

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know, but I wanted to.” I pull him into a tight embrace, and I lock my arms around his waist...he’s getting so thin...and I look up into his face, still broken out into that wonderful smile that I love so much. “You deserve it.” 

“I don’t.” 

“Why do you think that?” 

“I don’t know. I’m just feeling sad, I guess.”

“Let’s go on inside, and I’ll show you what I got for us, okay? You go sit on the sofa and I’ll be right there,” I say as I head into the kitchen, but he stops, and he turns around...his eyes are deep pools of delicious honey in the afternoon sunlight. 

“I want a hug first, please? I’m feeling sort of nervous. The doctor made me feel awfully nervous, and so...I want to just please sit down for now.” 

“Now, wait a minute, okay? That’s exactly what I had in mind as well, but look what I got us.” I pull the DVD out of my purse, and his eyes light up exactly as I’d hoped they would when he sees exactly which movie I brought home. He pulls me in for a hug, and I pull him down toward me, and kiss the top of his head. His hands find their way to my face, and he pulls my face toward his and kisses my nose. I feel his eyelashes tickling my eyelids, and his forehead resting against mine.

“Thank you. That’s so lovely that you thought of me that way, my Wendy.”

“I bought us a snack, too,” I say as I pull two pink apples out of my purse. He smiles at me like he was hoping I’d gotten something a little sweeter, but he laughs, and he shakes his head.

“Only you would say ‘snack’ and mean an apple, Maisie. Normal people say ‘snack’ and mean crisps, or ice cream, or something. Pretzels, maybe.”

He snaps at me, but I can tell he’s joking from the playful kick to his voice. He takes the apple from me and bites into it hard. Even when I watch him take a bite of an apple I feel so dizzy and giddy like a little schoolgirl with her first crush. Just like I did in 1967. 

“And normal people aren’t very healthy, are they?” I tease him right back. His diet was dreadful when I came here, and so we’ve had to go through a lot of changes together. I remember one of the first days I was here I tried to give him oatmeal for breakfast, and I put some almond butter in for protein. He gave me such a hard time. ‘Maisie,’ he said, ‘I’m so very sorry, but I don’t want to eat this. It doesn’t look like I would like it.’ Eventually, we came to the conclusion that I’d made his oatmeal too thick, and from then on he ate it every time I made it. Then there was the time I made him try kale with dinner, and he got upset then too. I never got him to like that one, so I stopped trying. But I can at least get some vegetables and fruits in him now, and he’ll eat chicken breast instead of just buckets of fried chicken (which were the first thing to go: that and the second refrigerator). 

“You’re keeping me healthy. Like that doctor said, I’m lucky to be alive. It’s all these apples as snacks you keep feeding me. If it were up to myself I’d have been dead two months ago.” 

I don’t want to say that what he’s saying is true, but my sister in law is certainly not the help she tries to lead everyone to believe she is, and so as much as I don’t want to believe that Syd would be dead if I hadn’t come here part of me suspects he might be right. It isn’t that Rosemary mistreats him. She certainly does not mistreat Syd, but it does seem as if she has a hard time minding her own business and does seem very eager to talk about ‘end of life’ things, if you understand what I mean. She and I have had many conversations now about how I’d like her to back off a little and let Syd talk about those things when he’s ready, but she insists that he won’t talk about it unless we push him. Personally I think she talks a little bit too much about the will and how much everyone is getting, how much I’m getting in particular, that’s a big issue (she doesn’t know I plan on giving it to her anyway, the bitch), and she critiques how I’ve cleaned the house every time she’s here. That in particular pisses me off because it looks better in this house than it did when I first moved in, and that was when she was in charge of cleaning it. Now Syd cleans it with me. 

But based on his diet when I got here alone, and the state of the house when I got here (it took us three days to clean the whole damn thing, me and Ian), I have to doubt how much caretaking she was actually doing. Still, I have not said one word. It’s not his business that she’s obviously got some kind of issue with me, and in fact I want him to have nothing to do with it because he doesn’t need the stress of knowing his sister who he loves so much and I have an issue with one another. I’ve barely said anything to her, either, because I don’t want anything that I could say to get back to him. I don’t think she’d say anything, but I really don’t want to take the chance.

I throw my arm around his shoulder and kiss his cheek softly. I’m saving a kiss on the lips for our wedding day, because I think it would be more special that way, but sometimes it’s so hard for me not to pull him close to me and kiss him with all the feeling that I have. I know he wants it, but I also know that Syd would really love for our first kiss to be special, so I deal with both he and I feeling bad and feeling like we’re missing out. 

“Hey, let’s put the movie on now, okay? We can sit close together if you want, too.”

“You know that’s all I want,” he whispers as he places the remains of his apple down on the coffee table (and I give him a stern look so he remembers he’s supposed to actually throw it away), and pulls me into his side. “I couldn’t ask for a better day, my Maisie. Never.” 

“Neither could I. Not for one second.” 

I think I’m telling the truth too. I don’t think there’s anything else I’d rather be doing with anybody else. I get up to put the movie in, and when I sit down he pulls me right back where I was while I mess with the remote and get the movie to play. I burrow in between his body and his arm and wrap my arm around his stomach, enjoying every second of the warmth of his body. 

“I’m so glad you’re here taking care of me. I’d be so lonely now if you weren’t.”

“You have so much love in your life,” I say. I don’t think he should place as much importance on my presence as he does sometimes. He’s surrounded by love. Syd wouldn’t be lonely without me.

“I was lonely without you for all those years even though I have those people.” 

“Well, I’m here now, so nobody is lonely. I was getting kind of lonely too. I never thought I’d be able to say that I was getting married.” 

“I would have married you 40 years ago. Or 30, or 20, or 10.” 

I lean up and kiss his ear and his cheek and nuzzle my face against his. 

“I know, baby, but neither of us were ready for that then. And I haven’t been ready until now, but I don’t think I would be with anyone else but you.”


	7. Maisie - Cambridge, 1969 - David And Maisie's House/the car/Cora's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie prepares for Cora to give her a makeover. When she gets there the two of them bond immediately, but David and Roger are left alone to try to figure out something to talk about.

_Cora told me to bring some of my sexiest clothes with me, but I'm not sure if I have anything that's sexy. Maybe this white blouse. It's kind of low cut. Oh, I have this shirt dress also, the pink one with the white stripes. There's also this mini dress I got when Roger and I spent that day in London, but I never wore it. The only reason I remembered I had it is that Roger put it on top of all of my clothes when he packed them. It's solid pink on top, tight on my chest and around my waist, which goes for everything I have to wear or I'll look like a big fat box according to Mother. Then on the bottom, on the skirt part, it's got this delicate pink, red and white paisley print that Syd thought was so pretty when he saw it (I miss him...is that bad? I miss him all the time). It's a thin satin material, and I personally don't feel like it covers enough, but I'll bring it. I'll bring that white blouse too, and some red high waisted shorts. I better bring tights too in case I choose the dress, so I grab a sheer flesh pair. There's no way any of Cora's shoes will fit me, so I choose a pair of tennis shoes with socks for the shorts and blouse, and a white kitten heel for the dress since I don't own any shoes that really match it._

_It was so funny before when David came in to help me go into the closet to get my clothes._

_"Why are you gonna let her dress you all up like her?"_

_"I think she dresses nicely."_

_"She does, but so do you."_

_"But you said she's pretty."_

_"I didn't say you weren't. I also said she wasn't my type."_

_I think David is going to think it's funny when he sees me all dressed up like that. He'll probably laugh so hard. We laugh about a lot of things lately; we always joke around. He's so used to me looking like this he'll probably laugh his head off. I bet I'll look silly. Cora's look won't work for me. She's a goddess, and I'm just cute. I'm adorable, everybody says. To me, words like 'cute' and 'adorable' mean 'fat and plain looking'. Syd called me beautiful. He was the first one. The first boy, anyway. Syd...I miss Syd so much. Anyway...I don't think I'll look good looking like Cora. I think I meant to look how I look, even if I don't think I look all that good. Fat and plain, you know?_

_I pack all of the clothes and shoes into a red canvas bag, and we head right to Cora’s. In the car we have the radio on, and I'm singing along to Janis Joplin. My hair is blowing in the soft wind coming in through my open window, and I close my eyes and start belting. It feels so liberating. It's fun. I'm having fun. It's been so long since I've had fun._

_"You've got a pretty singing voice," David says as he turns the music down. His voice is genuine and warm; I know his compliments are sincere, and I don't often accept compliments from people. I always feel like people exaggerate or lie to make me feel better, but with David I can tell it's real. I don't know why, but it's always so obvious to me._

_"How can you tell? The music is so loud."_

_"Because it isn't hard to tell anyone's voice from hers, but besides...I think yours is prettier. Hers is a bit scratchy, isn't it? Yours is smoky."_

_I blush a deep scarlet, I know, because I've always loved to sing, and nobody ever noticed. Maybe my mother gave me some superficial comments a few times about how good I was while she barely paid attention to me, but I was never picked out for being a good singer. Then again, I was never picked out for anything good or nice. It feels nice when David gives me compliments: it feels like it's something I can really believe, and like finally someone besides Lynette and Gloria to notice._

_"Thanks. You know, I think you have a beautiful singing voice, too. Your voice is so calming."_

_"Maybe I should sing you a lullaby, or something. Maybe then you'd sleep better instead of tossing and turning and kicking me every night," he says teasingly. I smack his arm with a playful gentleness, not enough to hurt: only enough to make him feel like I'm playing at being mad at him (which I am)._

_I look over at David, his honey colored hair shining against the backdrop of the sun spilling in through the car windows, and the cool blue of his eyes fixed carefully on the road. His hair falls in soft, curly locks around his shoulders...his strong shoulders...and some strands frame his perfect masculine jaw. His smile is framed by full, pink lips. I didn't notice until now that David is gorgeous. How did I not notice that? I knew he used to be a model, I should have noticed, but wow is he beautiful._

_"Maybe you should. It's worth a try, isn't it? Nothing else seems to work," I say with a laugh. I know he's teasing me, which he does sometimes, and I think it's hilarious. He turns back up the music and sings along with me, and while we're in the middle of belting we pull into Cora's driveway. Cora comes running out as soon as we pull in, and Roger is waiting behind her in the doorway. He looks smug and gloomy in comparison with Cora, who looks sunny and excited. "What are you and Roger going to talk about while we're in Cora's room?" I smile at him and he shakes his head and sighs, his shoulders rising and falling in a shrug._

_"Whatever it is we always end up talking about, which would be music, because I can't find many other things I care to talk to him about."_

_He gets out of the car and opens my door for me, and I look over at Cora, who's slipped her arm through Roger's arm, and she's smiling up at him like he's done anything to deserve it. He isn't looking at her, of course, he's looking out the door at David and I, his face scrunched up like a disgruntled old man. He probably didn't want us to come. Roger used to hate having company. Vicki barely spoke to me after Roger slammed the door in her face. I suppose since it's Cora's house he can't say anything about it, which is probably really eating him up. I know for a fact that he doesn't want me here, that's for sure._

_"Be nice to Roger. Don't kill him," I whisper to David, and he laughs. Loud. Loud enough for Roger to notice it, and he does. It's like he knows we were talking about him, and his feelings are already hurt. If he ever had feelings to hurt._

_"I'll try my best, but no promises. Now go get Cora-fied."_

_He rumples my hair as Cora comes running up to me, her ponytail bouncing as she runs. Her skin, kissed by the sun of a bottle, glows in the light and her bright smile knocks me off my feet. She's like an excited little puppy when she runs up to me like that and grabs my hands._

_"Did you bring clothes?"_

_"I did," I say, holding up the red canvas bag with my outfits in it. She grabs it from me and takes my hand, and we run into her house, leaving the guys outside on their own. "I don't have a lot of sexy clothes, so I just picked what would be the closest thing, I guess."_

_"Don't worry," she says with a smile as she lays the outfits out on her bed, "these are fine. You're going to look so hot, I can't wait."_

_I look around Cora's room, and peek out the door into her living room, and compare it in my mind to Roger's room and living room. His seems positively gray and minimalist in comparison with her house that's full of pink, red, white and dusty rose tones, and there are flowers everywhere. She's got a big vanity in her room like my mother had, the kind with the lightbulbs all around the mirror and a seat with a plush satin cushion. There's pictures all over her walls: of her, of her and Roger, of her and her friends at the beach and at her high school graduation (she's 20, don't worry). The pictures of her and Roger make Roger look deceptively happy. Maybe that's why she keeps them displayed so prominently, because they look happy together: 'See look, he doesn't treat me like a pest all the time'. I'm not trying to be mean. I just don't understand how she hasn't seen past his illusion yet. Maybe he's actually nice to her in private. Doubtful, but maybe._

_I sit down on her bed next to my clothes, but then I remember they've probably fucked here, so I stand up again hoping she didn't notice, but she did._

_"Sorry, I just didn't know if we were friends enough for me to just sit on your bed like that, and then I got nervous and stood up because I guess I'm kind of awkward, and it happens sometimes."_

_"I think it's sweet that you're so shy. You're not awkward, I promise. You can sit anywhere, but you're going to be in that seat soon anyway." She points to the vanity's matching white seat and then pats the cushion, and so I pull it out and sit down, and I look at myself in the mirror. I guess it's obvious I'm picking myself apart because Cora comes up behind me and pulls the corners of my mouth into a smile. "Don't look at yourself like that."_

_"I'm nothing much to look at. Mother used to call me plain."_

_She grabs my head with both her hands and plays at pulling my hair out, like she's irritated with me. She even playfully growls at me before letting out a good natured laugh and shaking her head._

_"Stop that. You're so pretty. You've got sparkly brown eyes, and nice lips, and rosy cheeks, and a fabulous body, and great hair. Everyone thinks you're pretty."_

_"They do not. Not like you."_

_Her face in the mirror looks hurt, I can tell, and I didn't mean to hurt her feelings so now I feel sort of awkward again. She pats my head, and I watch as she looks off to the side and smiles a sad half smile._

_"I'm not prettier than you. I'm just a different kind of pretty than you."_

_"I guess I never thought of it that way. Maybe you're right, but you're just awesome, you know?"_

_"Hey," she says in a soft, shushed voice as she looks back toward her bedroom door, her lips and the corners of her blue sky eyes wrinkling up into a mischievous smile. She leans in toward me, and our eyes meet for a second where I'm plugged into her. Her straight, platinum bangs sit just above her eyebrows, and her hair, her long cornsilk hair in the high, tight mod ponytail glimmers in the sun. "I have some grass. Do you want to smoke it with me before we start?"_

_I never turn down an opportunity to smoke, so I nod excitedly. She takes a small pouch out of the drawer of her white wooden nightstand with the gold knob for a drawer handle. The bag is sparkling gold with a black tassel at the end of the zipper._

_"What about the boys?"_

_"Eh, who needs em," she says in a shushed voice as she looks toward the door again, but this time like she's sad. "They'll deal with it. I told Rog to leave us alone no matter what. And I know David won't bother us."_

_I notice the sadness in her eyes when she mentions her boyfriend's name, but I can't bring myself to tell her to drop him like a hot potato and preserve her innocence and sanity because he'll chew it up and spit it out. Amelia does enough of that for everyone, and Cora isn't receptive to it anyway. She's determined to see the good in Roger, and only the good, it seems._

_"I guess you're right," I say as I watch her break up the bud she took out of the pouch and pack it into her rainbow swirled glass pipe. Her fingers are long and graceful, like feminine versions of Roger's spindly, spidery ones, and her nails are perfectly manicured with baby pink polish. Her long, pale eyelashes sit gracefully above crystal blue almost almond shaped eyes. Cora's a knockout, it can't be denied. It's hard not to feel inferior next to her, and it's hard not to hate her for it. She's so nice though that you can't hate her, or at least I can't._

_She passes me the pipe to let me take the first hit, and I light it, inhale and pass it to her. She inhales while I exhale, and passes it back to me to inhale again._

_"Shall we get started?" She looks at me, a smile in her beautiful eyes, and moves toward her vanity and opens a drawer full of makeup: tubes of mascara and lipstick, cases of blush, eyeliner pencils, full palettes of eyeshadow in every color scheme, and little compacts full of face powder._

_"Yeah. I'm excited. I don't really wear makeup."_

_"We're about to change that," she says as she looks intently at my face in the mirror of her vanity. It almost makes me nervous to see her gaze so intense right in my eyes. "I don't want to do anything too drastic on you. You're so naturally pretty that it would be a shame. Some girls need a lot, but you don't, really."_

_"Thanks," I say, and I can feel my cheeks reddening. The fact that a girl like her thinks I'm pretty enough to not need a lot of makeup is so flattering. Cora picks up a face powder compact and opens it, checking the shade._

_"You're pale, but you have olive toned skin. I might have something. I like to do people's makeup so I have a lot of shades. Let me check." She digs around in the drawer and pulls two different compacts out, looking them over and swatching them both on my arm. She holds one of the compacts up and says, "This is it." She uses a wide, fluffy bristled brush to apply the powder to my face, and it evens out my complexion and makes me look less shiny. She steps back and admires me, and she says, "You really only needed that little bit of powder to get your complexion even. Amazing. Let's try some rouge now. I think light pink will work, or maybe tan. Let's try the pink, because I'm putting you in that dress." She uses a smaller brush to circle some pink blush on my cheeks, leaving me with a rosy glow that I always thought I kind of had naturally, and I don't understand putting on makeup to achieve what you already have, but I really want to be Cora's friend so I'm not going to say anything._

_"I like it," I say, because it does look nice._

_"Good, but we aren't done. You need just a little brown powder in your eyebrows to shape and fill them a little, but you have really nice ones. My friend Joan has like no eyebrows, and you can see I have very white ones so I use powder too." She uses a small, angled brush to fill in my eyebrows with some dark brown powder, and I think they look nice, but I'm not used to it. I feel like I look a little too serious. "Now," she says, "eyeshadow."_

_She takes out a bunch of eyeshadow palettes and splays them out before me on the table part of her vanity. I pick them up and look them all over: some are red tones, some have brown tones, some have blues and pinks and yellows...she has everything. My eyes settle on a gold, circular palette with engraved writing on it: it says her name in fancy script writing._

_"What about this one?"_

_Cora takes it from me, but not like she's angry at me for holding it. As if she's sad, I guess. Her hand goes limp when she takes hold of it. I turn around to look at her, and I see her studying the front where her name is engraved: her eyes are roving over it, and there's a wistfulness in her eyes that I'd call sad if it weren't so tragically beautiful. That's the only way I can describe Cora's perfect blue eyes right now: tragically beautiful._

_"Can we not use this one? Roger gave me this one."_

_Ah...now I get it. Maybe he's nice to her in private after all. That makes me feel a little better, because maybe his Highness is capable of loving someone else, and he isn't just a narcissistic egomaniac._

_"Oh, of course we don't have to use it, Cora! Don't worry."_

_She clutches it to her chest, and then I see her raise her arm and stick her knuckle in between her teeth while she widens her eyes, concentrating hard on the ceiling. When I look closer, I can see that her eyes are welling up with tears, and her lip is quivering._

_"Are you okay?"_

_"Yes. Oh, yes," she says through a small sniffle. "I suppose it's just... he's so hard to read. Sometimes he's so sweet to me, you know? And then other times he's a big bully and he's short with me, or he locks…"_

_"Locks you out of his study?"_

_Her eyes widen, and they settle on me again. She nods, almost like she's relieved someone understands._

_"Yeah, exactly. Did he do that to you too?"_

_"Yeah, he did it a lot. Most of the time, actually. It's okay though because I really think it's just hard for Roger to be affectionate. He loves you, I know he does." I'm lying to her because she looks like she's about to burst into tears, but I don't think Roger loves Cora. I do think that Cora could find a man who did, but it's not Roger. It isn't my business to intervene though._

_"I just wish he'd be like he was in the beginning. Oh, listen to me," she says, wiping her eyes, "I invited you here to give you a makeover, and here I am crying like a baby and talking about myself. Let's choose some eyeshadow."_

_I look over all the other eyeshadow palettes and choose one with a whole array of pink, gold and light brown tones._

_"This one's nice."_

_"That will look divine on you." She picks up the palette and digs around in her makeup drawer for some brushes: little fluffy brushes designed to apply and blend eyeshadow. "You know," she says as she swirls one of the brushes around in a clay brown color, "David is going to go bonkers when he sees you."_

_That's something that never even crossed my mind, that David might like me this way. He didn't seem to be too into the idea. Does it matter?_

_"Oh, no. I don't think so. David and I are just friends."_

_"I think you're lying to yourself. It's obvious to anyone that David likes you."_

_It couldn't be, could it?_

_"I don't think so. He doesn't. Really, we're just best friends."_

_She leans down and puts her face right beside mine so we are cheek to cheek, and she smiles at me in the mirror. Her eyes are almost mocking, but they're so friendly I can't feel insulted or defensive._

_"Really, Maisie, you're too smart not to see it. David's crazy about you. I bet you anyone you ask would say the same."_

_"What makes you say that?"_

_"Come on. The way he looks at you, the way he pats your head, the way he asked you to stay at his house?"_

_"I just didn't have anywhere else to go," I say softly as I close my eyes.I can feel Cora's brush applying eyeshadow on my eyelids, and the brush tickles me. She taps the brush on the rim of the tin the palette sits in, and swirls the brush around in a lighter gold color. She places her hand on my cheek and looks my eyes over like she's checking where to apply the lighter color._

_"Let's be honest with each other. It's rare that men are just friends with women, or do nice things that inconvenience them as much as having them move in if they don't have feelings for them. I promise you, David is crazy about you, and if he doesn't make it obvious now it won't be too long before he does. Count on it." She places the palette back down on the table with the others, and she turns my face up to the mirror. My face looks kind of the same, my eyes just look a little more pronounced with the flesh tones of the eyeshadow she put on me and the little bit of pink in my cheeks. "Now eyeliner. Do you want black? It'll be a little more drastic, but you might like it. I can also do brown which would look more natural just like the rest of the colors I used."_

_I'm still stuck on what she said about David while I try to decide between brown and black, between stark and dramatic or soft and natural. Could it be true that David likes me as more than a friend? And could I ever feel the same way? I never even considered David as more than a friend, not until today when I looked at him and noticed how beautiful he is. My eyes travel over the two pencils, and I'm unsure. I can't decide._

_"I don't know," I say with a small, self deprecating laugh. "I'm not sure what would look better."_

_"Honestly, you have this innocent thing going that I think would be ruined by the dark black eyeliner, so I'm gonna put brown on you, and then some mascara and lipstick, and we'll get that dress on you, and some jewelry and then lastly we'll do your hair, and then I'm gonna take you out there and show you off to your future husband."_

_I can feel my cheeks heating up as Cora pulls the soft tipped brown pencil across my eyelids and up into a tiny wing. I'm thinking about David and his smile, his eyes, the way I feel when I lie in bed with him at night…_

_But I miss my baby, my Syd._

_"I think maybe I like David," I admit to her, "but...I miss my baby. I miss Syd. I know it doesn't make any sense because of what he did, but I miss him every day."_

_"It makes sense. He hurt you a lot, but you still love him."_

_Little tears start to gather in the corners of my eyes and I quickly dab them with my sleeve before I mess up my makeup._

_"Yeah. He was my first love. I have never ever felt this way about anybody. I just wish it never happened and I was still with him, and everything was still normal."_

_"Honey," she says as she sweeps some mascara through my eyelashes and wiggles the applicator brush at the end, "he did something terrible to you. I know he's sick, and he's not a bad person, but you were really tortured by him. I know you miss him, but you are so much better off without him than with him. And David... David is such a good, kind boy who would be loving and gentle with you, and he'd never hurt you that way."_

_"You're right," I admit, "but I think I need some time before I...try to move on with somebody else."_

_"Well, that's the smart thing to do. Do you want a pink lipstick, too?"_

_"Yeah, I think so. It would match everything else."_

_"I agree. This is fun. Are you having fun?"_

_"I really am, Cora. I like spending time with you. I'd really like to be better friends."_

_She smiles a big, bright smile at me, and she wraps me in an embrace. I wince when I feel her lithe body close to mine, but not in a bad way. How can Roger not like this girl? She's so cool, and so pretty._

_"I really want to be good friends with you too. I'm glad you feel that way. I don't really have any girlfriends anymore, not since I met Roger. He's just very picky about who I spend time with. He can't fight me on you though because you're always around anyway."_

_She's wrong: he can and will fight our friendship, but I don't care. He can fuck off. Cora steps back and lets me admire myself in the mirror, and I look like a bit of a more dolled up version of myself. My eyes look really big and bright with the eyeshadow colors she chose._

_"I love it. Thanks." She approaches her bed and picks up my dress, tights and shoes._

_"Now these! Do you want me to step out so you can change?”_

_“No, I don’t mind if you stay. I might need help getting this dress on anyway, I’m afraid it’s too small.”_

_“You’ve never worn it?”_

_“No. Roger actually bought it for me when we were together. He really liked it, and I like it too, but I never wore it. I only kept it because Syd liked it so much.”_

_“Well let’s get you in it, then, but I don’t think you’ll have any trouble. You seem to think you’re fat, but you’re not. Anybody can tell you did a lot of exercise to get your body, you just have a soft layer on top. Nobody minds, a lot of men like that.”_

_I remove my top and my pants and I’m standing in front of Cora, almost totally exposed, nothing but my bra and my panties protecting me from being totally naked in front of her. And the thing is that I’m not sure I really mind. I don’t really think anything of Cora looking me over, almost like she’s curious about what I look like under my clothes. In fact, I wouldn’t mind showing her, but I think that might be a step too far. She passes the flesh colored tights to me, and I bend over to slip them on, and as I pull them up over my thick thighs I watch her eyes roam over them._

_“What?”_

_“I’m jealous of your legs.”_

_“Why? You’ve got beautiful, thin long ones. Mine are short and fat.”_

_“Not fat at all. Muscular.”_

_When the tights are rolled all the way over my legs and up around my waist she hands the dress to me and watches as I pull it over my head and let it settle around my body. She’s right: it fits perfectly, and falls over my hips in a way that really emphasizes the curve of my waist. I turn around in the mirror and I’m really disappointed when I see the size of my bottom._

_“I dunno. My bottom, though. It’s so fat.”_

_“Stop using the word fat!” She smacks my bottom and grabs a hold of one cheek. “Muscle! This is all muscle!” She lets go of me and then pats my bum one more time. “I swear to goodness, you are going to be the death of me, you beautiful, curvy girl. Now let me look at you.”_

_I twirl around in a circle, slowly at first, and then fast enough to make the skirt fan out a little bit and lift just enough to show off my thighs._

_“What do you think?”_

_She places a hand over her mouth and backs up into her wall like I’ve blown her away._

_“You’re bloody gorgeous, you doll. Don’t let me ever hear you call yourself a bad name again. Now come here and let me figure out what to do with your hair. I don’t really want to change it. I thought about ironing it, but your curls are too pretty, and the ironing is so bad for your hair anyway. I need to stop doing it! Do you maybe...hold on. I have something.” She holds up her index finger and I marvel again at her delicate lady hands with their ‘just long enough’ shiny pink polished nails. I’m looking at her and she has no idea that I really, really think she’s got pretty eyes and a cute nose._

_“You’re beautiful, Cora. So we can both be gorgeous, I guess.”_

_“That’s what I said before. I wish more girls understood that...that we’re all just different kinds of beautiful.”_

_“I like the way you think.”_

_She comes back with a small silk cherry blossom glued on to a hair clip, and pushes it into my hair while she bites her bottom lip and smiles at me with her eyes. Roger is wasting this good, kind, beautiful woman. He’s wasting her. He treats her like garbage on the side of the road, or a fucking mosquito that he always wants to swat away, or something. For some reason, this woman really likes him, and he just doesn’t give a fuck about her. I know how she feels: I really, really liked Roger too, but I got over it much quicker than she did. He never bought me an engraved eyeshadow palette, though, but I guess I was never the kind of girl that would use that kind of thing anyway. It’s obvious he at least likes Cora more than he liked me, which makes me happy...because Roger really had me fooled. I wish that she’d wise up and leave him, but then I guess we wouldn’t be able to be friends, and I really, really, REALLY want to be friends with her. That’s such a weird position to be in. I want to be friends with her, but the only way we’ll really be able to be friends is if she stays with a guy who treats her like he treats her._

_“Can I go look in the mirror?” I ask as I watch her smiling at the way my hair looks with the clip in it. She nods, and I look at myself, and I don’t hate it. It doesn’t really feel like me, but I don’t hate it. What makes me love it is how happy she looks when she can tell that I like the job she did._

_“You’re perfect. Well, you were already perfect, but you just look so sweet. I can’t wait to see David’s face when he sees you.”_

_She grabs and hugs me again, and I oblige her. I wrap my arms around her back, and I admire the length of her torso and her graceful long legs. If she liked girls….I don’t know. I might be in trouble._

_“Let’s go, I guess,” I say. I’m dying of anxiety. My stomach is cramping, my heart is pumping. I feel queasy, and dizzy, and blown away when she places her hand on her doorknob and turns it. Her hand twists the knob, and the door opens, and she walks out ahead of me._


	8. Roger - Cambridge, 1969 - Cora's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger spits verbal diarrhea at Maisie, and as usual ruins a perfectly good afternoon.

_It's been such a drag trying to find something other than music to talk to David about. We've never been friends, but in the past few weeks every time I look at him I get angry. Angry isn't the word for it ...I feel rage. It's not enough that David is a better singer than I could ever be, a better guitar player than I could ever be, better on the fucking bass than I ever will be, and better looking than I ever will be: he gets Maisie, too. I know they haven't gotten together yet, but they're going to. Anyone with eyes can tell except the two of them, and I'm disgusted. Disgusted, jealous, enraged, devastated... heartbroken._

_All I can think every time I see them together is that I want her so much I can taste it...I'd do anything to make her love me: anything, even things I wouldn't approve of, but who am I kidding anyway? There's no behavior I disapprove of when it comes to getting what I want. When I watch her through David's windows I see how happy they are just being friends, but I can tell they both want more, and it leaves me in physical pain. The way she smiles at him when she thinks no one can see leaves me in pieces. Though it makes me suffer so I can't stop watching. I'm an addict...I'm addicted to seeing her vulnerable, in her most private moments, and daydreaming that she'll catch me and it will only make her realize that I've been here all along hopelessly in love with her._

_I cherish the moments when I'm at my own home or here at Cora's, and my mind isn't overloaded by feelings of pathetic, stupid longing that I can't fucking stop. It's like a bleeding wound that can't be bandaged; I'm in pain every time I look over at her and she's not looking back at me._

_So now it feels like the fucking worst has happened. Cora wants to be "best friends" (her words, not mine) with Maisie, and oh, she just had to invite Maisie here without saying anything to me beforehand. I literally found out ten minutes before the two of them showed up here. I wasn't at all prepared for having to deal with this, with seeing them together in the comfort of my girlfriend's home. And then it was announced that Cora was going to do Maisie's makeup and hair and dress her up, and I want to scream because I have no idea how to handle all of this anxiety and terror I feel._

_"Hey, Roger, are you alright, mate?" David's soft, deep voice brings me back to reality: terrifying, humiliating, heartbreaking reality where I'm in love with the girl who likes him, and I'm dating the girl I have barely any interest in. The girl who loves me. Again, I have no interest in a girl who actually likes me, but I'm falling down desperate at the feet of a girl who treats me like I don't exist._

_"I'm fine, yeah. Just got distracted for a second there," I lie. I'm a good liar, trust me. I've always been an expert liar: I could tell a group of people I'd climbed Mt. Everest and they'd believe me if I believed it enough. I know I'm not fine, but I believe I'm fine._

_"You've seemed pretty out of sorts the entire time we've been talking. Is something going on?"_

_Is something going on? Is something going on?? Now there's a question. Yes, something's going on, David: I'm in love with the girl I think is about to fall in love with you. I'd fall at her feet in agony, and beg her to belong to me, but I have no chance...you are all she sees, and I can tell without anyone having to tell me._

_"No, nothing's going on. They've just been in there awhile."_

_David turns his head toward the door and laughs. With a shake of his head he smiles and looks back at me. He always looks so happy or content, and relatively unbothered. He's sunny. I hate it. I wish I could be like him._

_"I hear them giggling in there like a bunch of schoolgirls. What do you think they're talking about?"_

_I don't mean to say it, but I say it anyway, and with all the feelings I didn't want to say it with:_

_"Probably how much Maisie likes you, no doubt."_

_"Wait a minute, Roger. What? You think she likes me?"_

_He looks genuinely surprised. That's cute. As if he hasn't noticed the way she smiles at him. Maybe he's so dense that he doesn't get it. I never thought David was a smart guy, but I thought he had to have more sense than this. It's obvious to me that Maisie likes him, and I know Cora thinks that David likes her, too, which is also blatantly obvious to me. I brought Maisie here. She was mine first. She should be with me, she should love me. I took her virginity. I rescued her from her aunt and uncle and her cousins, and made love to her in their bed, and tenderly kissed her in their bathtub. She had never been loved by any man before me: I loved her first. Maisie is mine, and David can take her, but he won't have her forever. I make no promises to anyone else but myself, and I promise myself that I will win Maisie someday. Maybe decades from now, but she'll belong to me in the end._

_The door to Cora's room opens, and I can smell the piney scent of marijuana wafting from inside it. Great, they smoked together without us, those cunts. This budding friendship will kill me in the long run, I know it. Cora marches out like a proud gazelle, and I almost die knowing it's time I'm going to have to look at her all glamorous and sexy, and I'm going to long for her later while I lie awake next to Cora, like I always do. I wish it was her warm, plump body lying next to me instead, and when I think of her looking how she'll look today it will make it all that much more painful._

_"Here she is, new, and not improved...just different," my dumb, shallow girlfriend announces with an excited singsong voice. I wish I could love Cora. I try to love her..._

_Then it happens: Maisie walks out of the room, and she's... perfect. She's not glamorous, she's not sexy...she looks feminine and vulnerable and innocent and all I want to do is feel her warm, soft body melting in my arms with that sweet girlish pink, red and white dress and that dainty pink flower...those modest white heels and baby pink lipstick. Her long, wild curls falling down her back like a river of cocoa...her eyes highlighted with the most natural, delicate eyeliner and eyeshadow...her rosy, shimmering cheeks…_

_That’s the dress I bought her....she wore the dress I bought for her in London. Did she remember that when I looked at it on the mannequin in the shop I had to see it on her when she slid it over her head and onto her body, over her velvet skin? Does she remember that when she walked out of the dressing room I couldn’t breathe when I saw her in it? And then she never wore it because she hated me so much...but she wore it today. She looks better than she did the last time she wore it, too...she’s filled out a bit at the hips perhaps, gained a few pounds, perhaps...it looks...maybe better._

_I couldn't ask for anything else from her if I tried to pick her apart and find something to ask for._

_I want to take her away...take her far away with me...I want to keep her. I want her to belong only to me: my docile, wide eyed, obedient love slave, her body only for my eyes and my enjoyment. Her lips belonging only to mine. Her love only for me, and for no one else... not even herself. She'll forget David if she'll only be mine. She'll forget Syd, and every other man on Earth if she just gives herself to me._

_But for some reason, I can't turn my feelings into words. I can't tell her how beautiful I think she is, and it isn't just because it would hurt Cora's feelings for me to tell Maisie that she's the most fascinating, magnificent creature in the world to me, and that she looks more beautiful than I could ever imagine her being. What an angel. What a beautiful, innocent, perfect angel who I can't stop looking at and coveting, but all that comes out is_

_"Looks improved to me."_

_Idiot. Fucking bloody idiot. Asshole. What's wrong with me? Why would I say that to her? I don't think she looks improved, just different. Why the fuck did I say that to her? Why do I have this problem with spitting verbal diarrhea at Maisie when all I want to do is be nice to her and make her feel loved and beautiful?_

_Everyone stops and looks at me, and it's so fucking humiliating. David and Cora look furious and dumbfounded, but I can see Maisie's eyes filling with tears. Oh, no. No, no, no. I never wanted to hurt her feelings. I never wanted her to look at me that way again. Never again._

_I watch her lip quiver as a single tear escapes from her eye, and she runs outside. The door slams, and both Cora and David get up, but Cora hangs back when she sees David stand up too. I guess she's going to stay here and give me the beating I deserve._

_I was right. When David runs outside Cora turns to me, a look of disgust on her face. I've never seen her look so infuriated with me. She looks like she could split me open with her eyes. She looks like she could spear me with a dagger right in my heart or sever my spine. I'm terrified of this look she's giving me. She might kill me, and I wouldn't blame her._

_"What in the bloody hell is wrong with you, you fucking nasty bellend? Can you go one day without being mean to someone else? Why would you say that to her? She's got such low self esteem. That should have been such a happy moment for her, but you spoiled the whole thing for her, and for David, and for me because I worked so hard to make her feel as pretty as she is. You ruined it just like you ruin everything else."_

_"I do think she looks pretty...I don't know why I said that. I don't even think that. It was just a stupid remark that I made. I was just teasing. She does look beautiful. You did a good job. I didn't want to ruin it...I just…"_

_"You just can't help but be nasty to people. Pack your shit and go home, Roger. I'll talk to you later. I don't even want to look at you right now."_

_"Fine."_

_I throw all my clothes and my toothbrush in my overnight bag, and I open the door and leave. But I can hear Maisie's soft cries coming from the side of the building. She isn't sobbing, but she's clearly crying. I want to hold her and take away all the pain I've caused._

_I creep along the wall, taking care to be as silent as I can (and I've grown quite talented at it), and I peer around the corner._

_Ugh. What have I fucking done? Driven her further toward his arms. That's what I've done._

_She's crouching on the ground with her face in her hands, and she's crying, and David's crouched down across from her with his hand on her shoulder. Her skirt has ridden up her thighs from her crouching, and I take a second to look them over in all their soft, thick, muscled glory. They look delicious clad in those pantyhose. What I wouldn't do to get my hands on those creamy thighs and split them open to get at the treasure buried between them._

_"He's lying to you. You look breathtaking."_

_"Why did he have to say that? I feel ugly all the time."_

_"Can I tell you a secret?"_

_"Yeah," she says through her tears._

_"Look at me," he says softly. She raises her head, and I see all Cora's hard work running down her face, and I feel like an absolute monster, a demon. "I don't think you look improved at all. You look beautiful, but I like you better the way you are when you first wake up and your hair's a mess and you've got no makeup on and you're wearing my t-shirt and your pyjama pants. I like you better when you dress and do your hair like you. I like the way you always look."_

_"How do you always know what to say?"_

_"I tell only the truth." He's got both hands on her shoulders now, and she's looking at him, her eyes wide...I remember when she looked at me like that. He smiles at her: his warm, friendly smile...the smile all our girl fans wish was for them, but it's for her. "Can you smile for me?"_

_"I don't know."_

_"I guarantee you that if you smile, you'll feel better."_

_I watch her face as David keeps smiling at her, and she does what he asks, except her cheeks flush red too._

_"Like that?"_

_"Yeah, exactly like that. Do you feel a little better?"_

_"Yeah, I do."_

_"Let's get you cleaned up. You need to wash your face. Do you want to see if Cora wants to try again?"_

_"No. It'll take too much time for both of us. I feel bad. Cora worked so hard, and she did such a good job. I was so happy."_

_"Roger's a mean prick. He always has been. You know all but Rick and Syd only tolerate him."_

_Ouch. I mean...I am. He isn't wrong. I know he isn't wrong. I wish he were, but he isn't. I exist to be disliked by other people, but crave their love. Why does every relationship I touch die?_

_"I know he is, but it was just so meaningless. I had so much fun, and he just ruined it."_

_There's that word again: ruined. I ruined it. I ruined Maisie's special moment with another nice girl who wants to be friends with her and make her feel good, and all I can do is make word salad and spit it at her in front of everyone like an evil cocksucker. I just want to be good to her. I want to be the one to make her feel beautiful. Why do Cora and David get that, and I get nothing?_

_"Do you want to go inside?"_

_"I'd like to have a few moments to myself to collect my thoughts and stop being angry so when I have to look at him again I don't chew his face off."_

_"Sounds good to me. I'll be inside, okay?"_

_"Thanks, David."_

_When I hear him coming I make a mad dash behind one of the bushes and crouch in wait for him to pass without seeing me. When he's gone I stand up, brush myself off, and breathe in deep and out even deeper. I've got to apologise. There's no way around it. I made her feel bad, and she deserves an apology. I have some morals._

_I walk around the corner to where Maisie's standing with her back against the wall, staring straight ahead out towards the other houses and the leaves on the trees and the sun dipping through those leaves. She looks kind of numb now, like she's trying to put it behind her. I don't want to make it worse…maybe I should go away. No, I've got to apologise._

_With my hands in my pockets I step in front of her. I look down at the ground, and then I look up to her eyes: her hurt, sad, scared eyes. My heart's breaking as we speak, my body feels pained. What do I say? I don't want to make it worse. Please don't say something stupid or mean._

_"Hey."_

_No response. No response. Silence. Utter silence. Those sad, teary eyes and all that pretty makeup trailing down her face. I feel like I've been torn in two._

_"...Hi."_

_Voice barely above a whisper: shaky. Distrustful. Afraid. Exactly how I never want her to feel with me._

_"I didn't mean to make you feel bad, Maisie. I was just trying to tease you, and it came out all wrong."_

_She shakes her head at me and looks to the side, and she starts to bounce up and down on her feet in a nervous way. Her lips are pursed, her eyebrows raised, her posture afraid and insecure. The early evening summer sun glimmers off her chestnut hair, highlighting some streaks of auburn that makes me fall that much more in love with her. I wish I could just tell her everything that I feel. She'd know then that I didn't mean it._

_"That was really mean."_

_"I know. The truth…" I can't do this. She's gonna shoot me down. "The truth is…" I have to do this. She deserves it. "I think you're beautiful. And I liked how you looked after Cora dressed you up and did your face up, but I'm a prick and I decided to bully you instead of telling you that."_

_"You are a prick. You're a huge prick. I never feel pretty, and for the first time in awhile I felt beautiful, especially after everything I've gone through, and you just shat all over it."_

_"I didn't want to hurt your feelings."_

_"Well, you did."_

_"What can I do? I'll make it up to you."_

_"Are you really sorry?"_

_"I'm so sorry, Maisie. I didn't want you to cry."_

_"I guess it's okay. You didn't mean it?"_

_"Not at all. I think you're so beautiful, Maisie. Not like it should matter, but I think you're … you're pretty every day, not just today."_

_Maisie's face is boring through mine, and she smiles, seemingly in spite of herself. My heart melts when I see that smile, because I know I gave it to her._

_Why is it always that I have to hurt women before I can be nice to them?_

_"Thanks."_

_"You're welcome."_

_"Just... don't be mean."_

_"I never mean to be mean. I guess I just don't always think about what I say before I say it."_

_"You can say that again. Don't worry about it, I guess."_

_I extend my hand for a handshake, and when she takes it I want to pull her into me and show her just how beautiful I think she is. I don't, though. I won't. It will only make her feel worse to feel my touch, as loving as it would be._

_When I turn to go home I let myself smile. That went remarkably and surprisingly well. Enough interactions like that and I could win her._


	9. David - London, September 2006 - Syd and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The afternoon after her fateful evening with David, Maisie is awoken by her sister in law Rosemary knocking to price Syd's possessions for an auction that Maisie isn't even sure she wants to have. The tensions between the two are coming to a head, and with Syd no longer around to be a buffer, who knows what could go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the only instance of this timeline that takes place in this volume. It was put in to tie up the September 2006 timeline and also set up for next volume.

I wake up in the guest bedroom to the sound of light, friendly knocking on the front door. I look at the alarm clock: 12 noon. Not bad, Maisie, not bad.

"Maisie? Are you awake?"

There she is, the Busybody herself, my sister in law Rosemary. She's downstairs knocking on the front door over and over again with that high pitched proper English lady Mary Poppins voice. She's here to sort through my husband's things and put prices on them, and let people come here and bid on them next week. I don't know why I'm allowing this. As his wife, the final decision on this rests with me, and as it is Rosemary said nothing to me about this to me until after Syd died. She never spoke to him about it, and this is by her own admission. Meaning, basically, that Rosemary purposely chose not to consider Syd's feelings about whether or not he'd like to have his things auctioned off to strangers. 

I roll reluctantly out of bed, swearing the entire time to myself because I'm so over this bullshit. I just want to go the fuck home and be with my friends, and write, and get away from this house and all its ghosts. I can't live here anymore. He haunts me every second I spend here. Every inch of this place is full of him, full of our love, full of his light...the light I can't feel anymore, and when I think of the way it's missing I can barely breathe.

Now she's stopped knocking and started blowing up my phone. I can hear that stupid jingling ringtone right in my ear. Jesus fucking Christ, back off. That's the worst thing about her: she's so god damned persistent, and not in that way where you can admire it. It's just annoying. She's not all bad. We were fine until after the wedding...that's when all the criticism and the harping on about the will started. I kindly informed Rosemary that I had my own fortune, and that she didn't need to worry about me scheming to get at any money that she felt was rightfully hers. When I told her that I expected that we'd move on and she'd stop focusing so much of her own energy (and try to focus Syd's energy) on the will. That isn't quite what happened. 

"I'm coming, you bat," I say under my breath as I drag myself down the stairs. I don't care that I have no bra on. She should have called first... she knows I sleep late. I could have done with a little notice. I hate that, don't you? When people just pop by unannounced. So presumptuous, and so rude. 

I open the door, and I hope that she can tell she woke me up. There she is. I hate that stupid pink headband she wears. She dresses so matronly and old, and yet she's younger than I am. You know this isn't about the way she dresses, though. I just can't put it behind me, this auction she snuck on me. I said yes because she'd already planned it all, and I was very surprised, but I'm not prepared to actually do this, and ultimately I feel a lot of pressure to make a decision I don't think Syd would want made. My husband wouldn't want this. He'd be terrified of a bunch of strangers coming in and out of his house looking at his things and bidding on them.

"Hey, Rose. Come in." 

I walk away from the door and turn my back to her, rolling my eyes the entire time. I switch on the coffee maker (I always pour the water in, and put the filter and grounds in the night before so in the morning I just have to turn it on...sue me) and throw myself down on a kitchen chair. Rosemary sits down across from me in Syd's old place. That burns me up, too. She shouldn't be allowed to sit where he did. 

"No breakfast this morning?" 

That tone in her voice. Ugh. Reminds me of every time she'd come here and glance around the house and start in with her "hm"s and her "oh, wow"s when she found even one spot one of us had missed. I'm not sure why she's jealous of me, but this house was spotless when Syd and I lived together here compared to the disaster it was when she was visiting every few days and cleaning. She's just bitter that I did her job better than she could.

Make no mistake: I'm not saying that Rosemary didn't love her brother. She loves Syd very dearly, and she did her best for him considering she had her own responsibilities. There's just some things I've noticed that I don't agree with, and the focus on the money is really a glaring disagreement I have with her and the way she goes about things related to my husband.

"I'll make breakfast. I just rolled out of bed. No reason to be up early anymore."

"Are you sleeping well at night? I find I'm having an easier time these days. For awhile there it was very difficult, though."

Well, aren't you lucky? He didn't die holding your hand, did he?

"No, I'm not. To be honest with you, I wake up every night in a fit if I can get to sleep at all. I probably could have slept two more hours."

She stares on sympathetically, and I make us oatmeal. Maybe she feels slighted because I didn't make her pancakes, but that was reserved for her brother. She only got to eat them because she was a guest when I made them for him.

"So, are you ready to help me with the starting amounts today?"

Just dive right in there now, why don't you? She's barely sat down and she's already talking about money. It's always related to money somehow, whether it was doing all those "secret" interviews for those biographies, or bugging Syd to talk about the will, or barging in here talking about selling his things. 

"Well, I've been thinking about that, actually." I set some oatmeal in front of her and start on my own. I drop a spoonful of peanut butter into mine so I'll stay full for awhile. I set two coffee mugs on the counter for myself and her, and pour some coffee, and then place both mugs on the table. She looks it all over like it isn't good enough for her. Well, I guess that's just too bad. This is what I have got the energy for these days.

"Thinking about it? Thinking what about it?"

"I just don't think I'm completely comfortable with the idea, Rose, I'm sorry."

Her gaze darkens like she's just had a dream stomped on: a dream to make money off of my husband's belongings. I can't help but think that her reaction is a little disturbing. Her feathers seem just a bit too ruffled for my taste.

"You're not comfortable with the idea? Since when?"

"I've had a very hard time of things, you know, and haven't really had a lot of time to think about how I feel about it until recently." 

I pour some milk in her coffee, and in mine, and pass her the cannister of sugar. I, of course, will not be having any, but I keep it on hand for her (Syd never had any either, at least he didn't after I moved in).

"I'm afraid I'm not sure what you're trying to say." 

She's lying: she does know exactly what I'm trying to say. How couldn't she? How does she see nothing wrong with this? She even wants to auction off his journals and his notebooks and his paintings. We've of course saved a number of them, but she deemed a few of them 'worthless' right to my face and decided unilaterally that they were to be sold. She picked up a pile of his old notebooks like they were a commodity, thinking only of some fan that would buy them and objectify her brother further in death when she knew for a fact he hated fame in life because simply it was so objectifying. 

"I'm saying that I don't know if I want to go forward with this auction, and that I think maybe we should hold off on doing any price estimates on things for now until I have time to decide how I feel." 

Her rationale for this since she started to talk to me about it after he passed has always been 'well, Roger never did place much importance on material possessions', and that's true: he didn't. But what he did place an inordinate amount of importance on was his privacy and his personal space, and she should know that.

"It's a bit short notice, isn't it? Telling me this the day I've come here to start pricing things?"

"I don't know: did you notify many official people that the auction was happening on a specific date?"

Caught, her eyes go wide. There's no recourse. She has no real reason not to let me stop and consider it before we go any further. 

"I hadn't. I wasn't planning on doing that until after we'd finished this. I wasn't sure how long it would take to do it all. Still, I'm here, so…"

"So, you're here and you've been told that I don't particularly want to put price tags on my husband's belongings today."

"Right, yes. Your husband. I'm sorry, I allowed myself to forget for two seconds."

She says that with an acidic tone to her voice and a roll of her eyes, as if it's silly to her that I value my relationship with her brother as what it is. We married: he is my husband, it isn't silly, and it's not an exaggeration. I'm tired of the signaling; it's unattractive. 

"Yeah, my husband. That's what he was, am I right?"

Rosemary stands up and gulps her coffee down in a hurry, probably intending to storm out. She gathers her old lady bag to her chest and huffs and puffs like I've done something to offend her.

"Perhaps I should call before I come over next time. I see you've woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." 

Now I feel sort of guilty. She didn't do anything to deserve the way I received her this morning, I guess... except that last thing she said. She could have just been agreeing with me, however, and I interpreted it as her being snarky. Somehow, though, it doesn't feel like I'm twisting her words. It seemed clear to me that she was being dismissive of my marriage.

"Look, all I'm asking for now is some time to think it over, and maybe I'll feel differently after I do. I just simply feel a little uncomfortable, is all. You know he didn't like people coming in and out of here."

"I suppose I find it a bit silly that you think you know my brother and what he'd want better than I do when your experience with one another was very short, all things considered."

That's when I stand up and I look directly into her stern brown eyes, and I take her mug from her, neglecting to check if she'd finished what was in it. I place it in the sink and do the same with her bowl, which she left relatively untouched. In my general fury I forget she's left food in it, and I'll have to empty it out before I put it in the sink. It's still too god damn early, and now that David's gone again I am back to feeling depressed. 

"I'm sorry to hear that you find my devotion to your brother to be silly. I suppose I'll see you later, then. I'll be in touch when I've thought about this more. Goodbye, Rosemary. Thanks for stopping by!"

I leave her dumbfounded while I turn back to her bowl and empty it into the garbage can, and then turn on the faucet to wash it. With another loud huff she turns and leaves. I hear the door slam, and I smile to myself because it was really a very easy victory. Auction averted for now. Now I actually do have to take the time to think about it: also known as 'take the time to figure out how to say no'.


	10. David - Cambridge, 1969 - David and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Maisie relax and make dinner together after the tumultuous events of the day, and he's happy to see her come back into herself... literally and figuratively.

_Crisis averted._

_Seriously, what's wrong with Roger? He's such a dumb cunt, for Christ's sake. I'm glad he was gone before I got inside because I probably would have told him where he could go. In fact, I know I would have told him where he could go, and probably worse. The nerve of that venomous dickhead, honestly, saying anything like that to her. I think he gets tongue tied around her and spits out the first mess of bullshit that his brain comes up with. That's my only explanation other than simply 'Roger Waters has a terrible personality and does nothing better than hurt other people's feelings'. Perhaps that explanation is preferable to you, and trust me, none of us blame you. Personally, I think maybe the truth lies in the middle: Roger Waters does have a terrible personality, he is very good at hurting other people, but he also likes her and can't figure himself out around her. Usually, it's funny: like that time he slipped and fell on the ice when she was standing in the snow by the lake with Syd, and the time he got caught by me staring at her and walked off in a slight panic. Today he was just nasty for no reason at all. And he wasn't even right about what he said, anyway._

_I'm sorry, she did not look better the way Cora did her up. I was polite. She looked pretty. But it wasn't her... it was like a caricature of someone's idea of her, or something. A perfected version of something that didn't need the perfecting. Maybe I sound like a sap, but she's sitting across from me right now at the dinner table, and she's got her hair in a ponytail and she's wearing regular house clothes...just jeans and a red t shirt now that we're getting dinner ready. She washed all that stuff off her face, so she looks like herself again, and I'm happier. I think she might be happier too, especially now that we're away from Roger. I don't think Maisie likes all those frills, and thank god for that. Seriously, when Maisie wakes up, before she sits up and rubs her eyes and curses at having to wake up and get out of bed, she looks over and smiles at me and she looks beautiful just like that. The morning sun spills over her face and her hair in its top knot bun is sprawled out on her pillow, and she yawns and lets out a little bit of a squeak. Then she giggles, and she says good morning, and that's my favorite way for her to look._

_She's chopping lettuce, I'm cutting the fat off of some chicken, and I know she's caught me glancing at her once or twice. I've caught her glancing back at me though, so I'm not too embarrassed. Things seem to flow a little more naturally lately between us, but there are still times when things get awkward...the kind of awkward you don't want to complain about... between us. This seems to be one of those times when she's glancing at me, and I'm glancing back at her, and we catch each other, and we smile at one another. We both get weird and shy and dumb and look away eventually. Sometimes neither of us can stop smiling._

_"Are we still leaving for France in three days?"_

_She raises a full eyebrow playfully, like she's pretending to nag at me, and I think it's pretty damn cute. I throw an eyebrow right back up at her, and pout at her, and she breaks out into a fit of giggles. It's so easy to make her laugh, you know._

_Ah, yeah, that's right. Hah. Neither of us have started packing yet. Life has been a lot more fun lately between us, and so I guess neither of us thought of it. I know it seems crazy, but that's honest to god what happened._

_"I guess so. I haven't heard differently. The gig is a few days after we're due to arrive, and it's a week from now, so yeah. Three days."_

_"I want to start packing tonight, I think. After dinner."_

_"Ah, is that code for 'David, please get all my clothes out of the closet so I can agonize over what I'm going to wear and complain that I hate it all anyway'?"_

_When I pretend to imitate her my voice goes high pitched, feminine and pleading, and I bat my eyes at her innocently. She throws a chunk of lettuce at my face and lets out a hearty, genuine laugh when it bounces off, and I pick it up and toss it back at her. It gets stuck in her hair, of course, which is even funnier._

_"I'll throw all this lettuce at you for making fun of me," she says with a raised voice, in the middle of another laugh. I stick my tongue out at her, and I hold my arms out like a T, and puff my chest out, signaling for her to feel welcome to challenge me. There's a mocking glare on her face, pursed lips and a bratty kind of gleam in her eyes: a weird kind of wicked nymph grin._

_"Do it," I say with a competitive edge to my voice and a mischievous smile, "Throw it all at me, and you'll just have to cut more."_

_She laughs one more time and goes back to chopping her lettuce. I watch as she looks down at it, concentrating on it, trying not to cut her finger (which she did last week). She smiles one more time down at the head of lettuce and the little shreds she's left on the cutting board like she's trying to hide it from me. I wonder if Roger was right about Maisie liking me. What do you think? I would've said no way awhile ago, but now I'm not so sure. She always tells me I'm her best friend, but the way she smiles at me and glances at me when she thinks I'm not looking...maybe he's right. How would I get us to the next level then, and what would be the right time to try? Do you think we need more time, or she needs more time?_

_"Roger apologised, you know, before he left."_

_Aha. There it is. I guess I was wrong. He didn't lose control of his mouth...he was bullying her on purpose so he could apologise later and give her a compliment. Classic Roger._

_"Oh, he did, did he? What did Mr. Ed have to say for himself?"_

_She laughs at the nickname. I always call him that behind his back, the ugly horsey looking fuck. Still, even though Roger isn't a good looking guy he gets a ton of girls when he tries because something about his swagger when it comes to women makes him look really good. When you get to know that Roger is a creepy, slimy, manipulative, lying little ball of trash you get to see his fucked up teeth and horse face even though you never noticed it before._

_"He told me he thinks I'm beautiful. Said he was just teasing me, and he thinks I'm pretty every day."_

_I was right. There it is. Complimenting her after insulting her to make her appreciate the compliment more than she would if he had just given it outright. It's a tried and true tactic used by fast talking, sex seeking men everywhere, and unfortunately more often than not it works. I can't tell you why, but it simply does. I don't understand why a man would want to make a woman cry ever, but I guess Roger likes to do that._

_"And what do you think of that?"_

_"I guess it's okay. He seemed like he did really feel bad about it. It still hurt my feelings, but I'm not going to hold it against him. I don't care about Roger enough to stay angry at him."_

_"Good answer. Do you think he was telling you the truth?"_

_She pauses her chopping, and stops to consider, her eyes up at the ceiling and her head rocking back and forth. After a minute of consideration she simply shrugs._

_"I don't care."_

_"You don't care, huh?"_

_"No. Whatever. It doesn't make much of a difference to me what Roger thinks of my looks."_

_I like the honesty, and I like that she feels that way. He's right, but she doesn't need his compliments._

_The thick evening summer breeze flows through the window and hits our faces. She takes a deep breath in, closes her eyes, and leans her head back, savoring the tickle of the breeze on her face. I look over at her with her hair cascading down the back of the chair: a big, lush bouquet of curls. Her small, but full breasts are standing at attention when she bends her back, and I am so embarrassed, but I enjoyed the view. If she weren't wearing a bra I might be able to see her pert little nipples peeking through, but don't tell her I've noticed them before. It's hard not to._

_"Does the world look different that way?"_

_“It does, actually. Looks quite upside down to me.”_

_“Is that so?”_

_“Yep. Like everything is the opposite way that it should be.”_

_“I get it. I feel that way sometimes.”_

_Maisie sits up and shakes her head, probably dizzy from the switch from upside down to rightside up. Her hair shakes along with her, majestic and feminine and wild. If someone put her in a renaissance maiden dress or a Viking warrior outfit she’d fit right in with that mane of wild, fierce hair. Her eyes are wild, too, and fun. Mischievous. Impish. That’s the word: impish. She looks like she’s ready to cause trouble. I wouldn’t mind causing some trouble with her._

_“You feel upside down?”_

_“Yeah, sometimes.”_

_“Like when?”_

_I mirror her impishness and her desire for causing trouble, showing her a silly grin and shrugging my shoulders._

_“Right now,” I say, and I’m telling the truth: when I’m with her it feels like my world’s been turned upside down. It feels like I’m all over the place, I’m spinning and jumping and shaking and falling over. Everything is dizzy and pleasant._

_We stare at one another, and her eyes light up when they meet mine, and I can feel the light in my eyes reflecting off the light in hers. Maybe it’s possible Roger’s right: she could very well like me, too, and not know it yet...or she knows, and she’s in denial, or she thinks I don’t like her and she’s afraid of rejection just like I am. I’m sure she’s terrified of being hurt, and I don’t blame her, do you? If I’d been through all that I’d be afraid of getting hurt too, and I know that I can promise her that she’s safe with me and that I won’t hurt her, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to trust me. In order for that to happen, I’ve just gotta keep doing what I’m doing: being her best friend. And if she doesn’t end up liking me as more than a best friend, at least we'll have that._


	11. Maisie - Cambridge, March 2006 - Syd And Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Syd is forced to go without pain medication until the morning, Maisie helps him fall asleep. Then she wonders whether it's possible to reach an old friend as she gets lost in a distant memory...

"Baby, how did Ian find my phone number?"

I'm curled up with Syd's arms around my waist from behind me, that position we've been sleeping in every night now. I don't know if I can sleep without him anymore. When I was trying to it felt cold and empty in my bed without him, so I don't ever sleep without him, and I'm so much happier. His body is so warm and safe next to me. Nothing compares to the feeling of safety and bliss I have when he and I lie so close together like this.

I turn over onto my other side to face him, and his beautiful eyes light up as soon as they meet mine. Unable to resist the light in his eyes, I reach my hand out to stroke his face. I gently trace his jawbone with my fingers and let them travel over his eyes and his lips, and he closes his eyes to focus on the way it feels. I move my hand up to touch the white fuzz that's all that's left of his gorgeous head of black hair, and he giggles, so I do it faster, feeling the little wisps of hair beneath my fingers and the palm of my hand like bits of velvet. I love everything about him, absolutely everything, and that's why when he proposed I was so quick to say yes: Syd is amazing, beautiful and special. I would have been a fool to say no to him. I love the way his whole face smiles, and the way he talks, the way he laughs, and the way he breathes. I love the way he stays asleep when I sneak out of bed to make breakfast even though he intends to do it before me every morning, but never does. I love how he looks so serious when he's deep in one of his paintings: his brow furrowed, his eyes focused and intense, his lips set in a straight line. I love how happy he is over such simple things: pancakes for breakfast, a walk in the botanical gardens, having the energy for a bike ride or time with his little friends, or the way I kiss his eyelids.

Everything about Syd is loveable to me. 

"He used the internet," he says simply in his sleepy voice while his fingers drift up and down my arm and through my hair. I'm trying to get back the curls I have tamed out of my hair with keratin because he told me he missed them.

I laugh, but it's because of the simplicity of it. It's because Syd has the internet in his house, but refuses to use it for anything because he's worried about being found, and he also just doesn't like the idea of it in general. He hasn't touched his desktop computer once since I've been here. So Syd doesn't know much about the internet.

"I know, honey, but what did he do on the internet?" 

"He typed in your name on some website, and your address and cell phone number were there."

"Interesting."

"Why, Maisie?"

"I was just wondering. I didn't know, that's all."

I'm asking because there's an old friend I'd like to reconnect with, and see if she'd like to come to my bachelorette party, or rather...what was just going to be me and Rosemary hanging out at her house alone with me not allowed to smoke any pot in her house. I'm not really into the idea of being alone with her all night really. She makes me a little nervous, but I'm not quite sure why. Sure, she's a little pushy, and she talks about the end a bit too much for my liking, but she's Syd's sister and so I play nice. Still, though, a night alone with her isn't really my idea of a fun time.

I haven't seen or talked to this old friend since 1978. She walked out of my life as soon as she walked out on her then husband, and I've spent many years missing her. It never occurred to me that I could find and reconnect with her before though, although I'm not sure why. It might have something to do with me not spending much time in England up to now.

"I'm going to sleep now. I'm so tired tonight. I feel kind of weak. I know sometimes you get up when I fall asleep, but will you not stay gone long tonight? I don't feel good, and I really need you next to me."

I kiss his forehead and sit up so I can pull the blanket up over him. He plays at not letting me sit up, but finally lets me go, and I pull the blankets around him and settle down next to him again.

"Do you want some of the medicine you have for pain?" He nods at me, and I can see he's not telling me how bad he hurts, which happens all the time. He doesn't want me to think about what's going to happen to him, and so he tries to hide things from me, including how much pain he's in. "Does it hurt worse than you're telling me?"

"Yes, Maisie, I am in a lot of pain right now, and I would like some medication, please." 

"Of course I'll get you some medicine, baby. I'll be right back, okay?" 

I kiss his forehead one more time after he nods at me, and turn to look at him before I go downstairs to the kitchen. It kills me to see him wince in pain that way, and it's jarring because so often Syd is very, very much still so alive and so happy. I wonder if inside he has fear or sadness that he isn't sharing with me. It would only be natural if that were the case. I can only imagine what it must feel like for him. 

I turn on the kitchen light and rifle through the medicine cabinet, but his pain medicine isn't where I last left it. I don't remember moving it at all. It's possible he took some before or something, and then forgot where he put the bottle, but wouldn't he have mentioned that? If he couldn't remember where he'd put something he'd tell me. Not wanting to leave him waiting too long in pain, I search through the cabinet for a few minutes, but come up empty handed. That's so strange. I always put Syd's medicines back in the same spot. I see his insulin, and his antipsychotic medicine, and everything else, but not the only thing he ever takes for pain.

It just isn't here. I've checked every bottle that's still in the cabinet, but it's not among them. I did find something to help him sleep, so hopefully that will do. 

"I'm sorry, baby, I can't find your pain medicine," I yell up the stairs as I'm walking up holding two of the sleeping pills and a glass of water. 

"You can't find it?" He asks when I come back in, and I can see the fear written in his eyes, a fear that I can't abate if these pills are left undiscovered before I can get the prescription refilled in the morning, and my heart is breaking. When he sees me carrying something else it looks like he heaves a sigh of relief. "What's this then?"

"It's Valium. You've never taken this before with me, but it's prescribed to you. Do you want it? I don't remember seeing it before. It was way back in there, it must be old."

"Oh, no thank you, Maisie. I'm sorry you went to the trouble of fetching them for me, but I don't like how those make me feel. I'll have the water though." 

"Okay, here you go. Let me bring these downstairs, and I'll throw them away. I'll see if we have something over the counter that might help you." 

I throw all the Valium away downstairs, the pills I took out and the rest in the bottle, right in the trash where it belongs. I don't understand why doctors prescribe that stuff anyway. I'm almost relieved he didn't want it. There's an over the counter pain reliever in the medicine cabinet, so I bring two tablets upstairs with me. He's still sitting up holding his glass of water when I pass them to him and he gives me a weak smile.

"I wonder where my real ones are."

"I thought maybe you'd misplaced them?"

"No. I haven't needed any yet today. This is as bad as the pain has been in awhile, I think. The last time I took them was two days ago."

"And I definitely would have moved a rogue bottle back into the cabinet by now."

"And you would have mentioned it to me and told me to put it back next time by now, too."

He smiles at me, another weak smile through the pain, and my heart melts when I see the way that even though he's got so much pain behind his eyes he smiles anyway. The way he teased me brings me hope because it's so much like how he usually is when he's not feeling sick.

"I probably would have, you're right." I go back to running my hand over his hair again and let him lie his head in my lap for a few minutes. He stares up at me again with that blinding, beautiful iridescent light in his eyes, and his lips curl into another smile. 

"I don't care how much pain I'm in. Looking at you always makes me feel better."

Before he goes to sleep I ask him to turn over on his stomach so I can rub his shoulders and back the way he likes me to when he's in pain. Slowly and carefully I work all the knots out of his muscles.

After a few minutes he turns over. I lie down next to him again, and I move closer and kiss both his cheeks and his forehead, and then his chin and the tip of his nose. I rest my forehead against his as he enfolds me in his long, sinewy arms again, and pulls my body close to his. The heat from his body radiates off of him, and I try to cuddle even closer to him if it were possible to feel all of his warmth that I could ever feel. I can't wait until our wedding night when I plan to tell him exactly how much I love him, how breathless he leaves me, how much power he has over me that he doesn't even realize he has.

"Sleep well, my baby. I won't stay gone long, and if you wake up and I'm not here you can just come right down into the living room." He nods, and he kisses both of my cheeks too, and also the tip of my nose.

"I love you, my Maisie. Goodnight." 

Soon after, Syd has drifted off to sleep, and I look over at his sleeping, peaceful eyes. I get lost in the tranquility and the beauty of his face for a few moments before I gently wiggle out of his grasp, and I walk down the stairs again.

I flip on the light switch in the living room and sit down in front of Syd's computer. I know it works and it runs fine because I checked the other day after asking him about it. I turn it on, wait for I to boot up, and then I take my opportunity to find my old friend. I'm not sure what to try, so I'm gonna start from the most basic place I can think of:

_Cora Waters_ , I try first, unsure if she dropped her married name when she walked out on Roger. Some pictures of her come up: old ones. Pictures of her, and pictures of the two of them. She always saw the best in Roger, I remember, as I look over all the old photos of Roger and Cora looking happy, but remembering just how unhappy Cora so often was. She always saw the best in Roger until she couldn't anymore, when there were no excuses left to be made and he'd broken the last chip off of the idealized shell Cora built around him to protect herself from the truth of who he was and what he did to her. She packed a suitcase one night and left, and Roger found divorce papers on his doorstep a few weeks later with no word from Cora. I never heard from her again. She didn't even tell me or anybody else that she was leaving...she just left.

There's that picture of the two of them sitting by the lake in Grantchester Meadows. She's got that beautiful, dazzling smile on her face while Roger dozes on the ground, shirtless. I remember that day. We had so much fun that day, at least she and I did, but we always had fun together. I think David and I were together by that time. Yeah we had to be because it was 1971, and everyone was home from a tour. It was late September, but unseasonably hot that day, and there was a sweet almost summery breeze in the air. It was the kind of perfect day for swimming, but since no one had expected it we'd all left our swimsuits at home. Then the boys all threw us in the water, and jumped in themselves, and a game of drunk chicken evolved out of that. I think back on that day, when Cora, Amelia and I went home in soaking clothes but the boys just left in their underwear. We sopped and shook and complained and whined the whole way home like a group of little girls. The hot sun dried us, and Cora made fun of how frizzy my hair got. I pretended to get angry, and I dumped my water bottle down her shirt, wetting her clothes all over again. She squealed and laughed and chased me down the road. Roger and David were laughing so hard watching us, we were such an odd pair: one a long, lean wisp of a girl with straight sunlit blonde hair and bronzed skin, the other a small, muscular little hippie chick with a long, crazy mane of big curly hair. An elf chasing a hobbit, Roger had yelled at us. That's when we both turned on him, and David had yelled

_"Hey, look at that big ugly orc being chased by that elf and adorable little hobbit!"_

He got so angry at David...so, so fucking angry. I don't know if he was just embarrassed that we turned on him, or if David really hurt his feelings all that much, but his reaction ruined that beautiful, fun day at the lake. We were having the time of our lives until all of a sudden Nick was pulling Roger off of David, and Rick pulling David off of Roger. Fists and legs were flying, insults were thrown. Cora and I were screaming, Jane had run off scared, and Amelia was in a rage of her own (she was the most drunk besides Roger). Cora and I walked the rest of the way home in tears with our arms around each other as both of our men insisted on walking the rest of the way by themselves. 

There are quite a few more photos of Cora then, and a few of her now, but I can't find any contact information, so I'll try her maiden name now.

_Cora Harlow_

Now I'm getting results. It turns out that Cora used her alimony money to open her own business, an online store dedicated to her entire line of independent beauty products. She's got everything: makeup, hair products, skincare products...I'm pleasantly surprised, and I'm thrilled for her when I think of the life she must be living now. I never would have thought that Cora would own her own successful business, and so I order a sea salt spray and a leave in conditioner in support, and find the "contact" page. 

It might be better to try and contact her with her company email than try to waste my time finding a phone number that might not even work.

Nervously, I type out everything I want to say, and I take a second to take a deep breath before I press 'send'.


	12. Syd - Cambridge, 1969 - The Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Syd wanders aimlessly, trapped in his own mind, alone and afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibly triggering material here for the mentally ill.

_I can't find her anywhere._

_I keep going over the same places and seeing the same things, all the same people and trees and houses and streets and animals and people and things and words and pictures and phrases and people and over and over and over again every day until I get dizzy. I can't find her anywhere. She's gone. She's nowhere . Nowhere, nowhere._

_Maisie's gone. She's gone, I can't find her anywhere. Why can't I find her? I belong to her...I'm hers, she should come to find me. I'm so lost. I don't know where anything is. Where is anything? Why is anything? Why am I? Who are you and who am I, and who is Syd, and why is Syd? Am I Syd, or Roger, or Sally, or a princess, or a toadstool or a thought? Am I real? Are you real? Is Maisie real, or did I make her up? Is she only a song I've written?_

_I don't know why everyone abandoned me. Roger abandoned me. Mum abandoned me. Daddy abandoned me. David. Maisie would never abandon me. She's only gone because David is the snake who took her away from me. I'm all alone, wandering about over and over, and they all just let me do it. No one says anything, no one comes to find me, so I just walk and walk and walk and I want to be with my Maisie so bad but I can't find her anywhere. I've been through this park more than once today. The one we met in that night. They're making it a botanical garden. I walk all through here looking for her because I think she would think to look for me here since it's when we fell in love. I think when she comes to find me she would think to come here because it's such a special place for us. Look at that spot, that's where we sat when she came. That's our bench there, that bench in this park is where I gave her those tabs and we fell so in love. So she'd want to find me here probably._

_But_

_It's not the snake. David is not the snake. But now the snake has access to Maisie all the time. You failed to protect her. You should be ashamed of yourself, Roger. You failed, and now your Maisie's been taken away from you._

_I tried to protect her. He took her away. He beat me up. I hurt so bad I couldn't move and I don't know why he hurt me if he would only have listened to me he'd understand that I only was trying to protect her because you told me she'd be taken away._

_Stewart: You've failed, and she isn't coming home._

_You're wrong, you are! She is so going to come find me. She will come home. She will, I know she will. She is going to come find me, do you understand? I know my Maisie would never, ever give up on me._

_I have to find her. If I don't try to find her she might never be able to find me._

_It's all so surreal, this park. And there's our bench again. Didn't I pass it not long ago, our bench?_

_I'm so scared and so lost. I'm so alone. No one comes to find me, you know. No one cares. Not one. I wish my Maisie would take me home and stay with me again. I'm so lost without her, and she's not anywhere I look._

_Estella: Why don't you check David's house then, dear? If you can't find her in the park perhaps she'll be with him. Have you thought of that?_

_I didn't think of that. I find it is difficult to think of many things like anything I try to think seems as if it gets all twisted, doesn't it? It sometimes seems as if I can't complete a thought because it all gets so choppy, or it all feels so squished together. My whole head feels explodey. It feels like everything I think is all broken into pieces. Sometimes the whole world is upside down._

_Why are all these people staring at me? All I'm doing is walking. All I'm doing is walking and these people keep looking at me, staring at me. Their faces look so concerned, afraid. What do they want from me? You'd be lost too without your only one. If the person you loved more than any other person was stolen away from you and you couldn't find them no matter where you look I'm sure you would wander about like me too. Can they tell what I am thinking about them, and that's why they're staring? Maybe everyone can hear what I'm thinking. I'm thinking I already belong to someone, and she's looking for me, so please look away from me. Stop looking at me, all you stupid, ugly people. Stop looking at me. STOP LOOKING AT ME. Everywhere I go people are always watching me like they want something from me, but I don't know what they want. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? I HAVE NOTHING TO GIVE YOU. I HAVE NOTHING, AND I AM NOTHING. I'M NOT EVEN REAL, I'M MADE OF PLASTIC AND PAPER LIKE A LITTLE TOY MAN. I'M NOT EVEN A REAL PERSON AND I HAVE NOTHING TO GIVE YOU SO STOP LOOKING AT ME AND GO AWAY._

_I'm so scared. So scared. I just want her to come find me and take me home and hold me tight all night long until I feel safe again. I have to find my Maisie so she won't be scared anymore. She's probably so worried. I'm worried about her, too. What if someone hurt her? What if she escaped David, but while she was trying to find me someone took her and now she's gone?_

_I have to find her because then I can tell her I'm so sorry she got hurt. I wasn't trying to hurt my Maisie. Never, ever, ever. The last thing I ever wanted was for the one I love most to cry or be scared. She didn't know about the serpent. I wanted to protect her from it. That's all. I wanted to make sure no one hurt her, that's all. I was guarding her but it made her cry. I would never do it again. I know she knows I'd never hurt her on purpose. If she'd come find me I'd be good forever._

_It all hurts so bad in my head. Everything hurts. It's all mush. My brains are all mush and mess. If I could take off the top of my head my brain mush would spill all over this park and I think many people would be very offended by the big splatter of my mushy brains all over the place. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to take off the tops of their heads to see if their brains would spill. I'd imagine so. It's a fair question._

_It's not even so much that I have to find her so she'll bring me home I just need to tell her that I'm sorry and beg her to bring me home because nobody else wants me but her. Nobody ever comes to find me. Not even Roger. Why do you think Roger doesn't love me anymore? I never understood why Roger stopped loving me, but he did. I wanted to be with him._

_Please come find me, Maisie. I'm so lost and lonely without you, and all those brutes do at my friend's house is poke fun at me and shut me in cupboards when they find I've hidden there to get away from them. I think they are stealing my things, too. I can't find my paintings or any of my clothes anymore it seems that I've been wearing this one thing for many days but I don't know what a day is. Sometimes a day feels very long, but sometimes they're frightfully short aren't they but only if you like the day is it short otherwise a day is dreadfully long and slow, and lonely, and scary. Everything and everyone is so scary. Everyone are monsters that I see. Everyone. Even the children I think they are monsters sometimes. All these ugly people. Even the beautiful ones are so ugly. All people are ugly. Me and Maisie we aren't people. We aren't people, we are sprites. We are lost children. All people are ugly. Sprites and all animals ever are beautiful, especially cats. Cats are the most beautiful things on the planet besides my princess._

_When will today end, do you think? Do you think that perhaps it's almost over? Do I really have to go back to that place with those awful, mean, dreadful lizard people? I hate every single ugly person in the world, that means every single person in the world, even Roger. I hate every last one of them. All people are ugly and rotten and hollow inside like Jack o lanterns. All people are are big, meaty jack o lanterns with hair and nails. They're all false, carved out and rotten. All of them. All of them._

_Please find me. Please come find me, Maisie. I am so alone and scared without you._


	13. Cora - Cambridge, 1969 - Roger's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora feels guilty for yelling at Roger and decides to walk to his house in the evening to talk things over, but she catches him acting suspicious, and then loses her will when he just won't talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is NSFW, and it's definitely dubious consent.
> 
> I hope some girls who have been in this situation are finding Cora relatable...I certainly do.

_I decided to come see Roger now that I've calmed down enough to talk to him. He apologised to Maisie, so I think I can let it go. At least he's decent enough to apologise to her for being so mean to her and so disrespectful to me. I don't think he even considered that what he said was disrespectful to me, so I want to make sure he knows that too._

_Despite everything I love my boyfriend... my weird, grumpy, too smart boyfriend. I know that Roger can be brash, bossy, selfish and mean, but inside I know he's vulnerable and afraid. He wants to be a good person. I know he can be if he tries, but when is he going to start to try? If he worked hard to be good I know it wouldn't be too hard. I've told him that before. I see so much good in him, and I don't care if no one else agrees with me. The thing is that every time I talk to Maisie about it, she agrees with me too, and he hurt her anyway._

_I'm wandering up his driveway to go knock and talk to him, but he's sneaking back from somewhere as I'm walking. I see him, and he's wearing all black with his hair in a ponytail and looking around all suspicious and shifty like he's afraid of somebody catching him. I'm not sure where at all he could have been because it's really quite late to be out walking, but then again I'm out walking too._

_"Roger?"_

_Oh wow, he jumped when I called out to him. That's so weird. Why's he so anxious? I must have caught him at a bad time, but like why would it be a bad time? This shouldn't really be a bad time for anybody. It certainly isn't a bad time for me. After all, I was only on my way to do just what I'm doing._

_"Oh. Cora. Hello."_

_Why doesn't Roger ever seem happy to see me? I feel like every time I come over here or whatever he doesn't really want me to be there. He all but hints that he'd like me to leave, but I don't know why I never do. I just love him so much that I want him to know even if he doesn't always want me I'll always be here for him. Maybe one day when he's grown up a bit and he learns to appreciate what he has he'll look back and see I was always here for him, and that I never gave up even when everyone else did._

_"Hi, baby. I thought maybe we could talk about today?"_

_He stops to think about it, and now he's shrugging his shoulders like it doesn't matter to him one way or another. He still looks really suspicious and keeps looking around. What's he watching out for? It's like he was doing something he doesn't want anyone to know about, but what could it be?_

_"Yeah, I guess we should."_

_He holds out his hand for me to take, and now I feel pretty relieved because at least he's doing this. Sometimes he's not even this affectionate. I don't know why so many boys can't be more affectionate or romantic. It isn't that hard. Sometimes I think Maisie has the right idea liking boys and girls. Girls are so soft, beautiful and delicate. They're warm and wonderful and friendly. Men are just so frustrating. I wish I only liked girls. Maybe then I could let go of Roger and move on with a nice girl. Eh, what am I saying, anyway? I really only like men, so I shouldn't even be thinking about that, probably._

_Hand in hand, we walk up the steps to his front door, and he unlocks it to let us both inside. He switches on the light, still holding my hand, and I am feeling really good about this right now because like every time Roger does this it makes me feel awesome since he does it so little and all. It makes me feel better about everything that goes wrong with us, and how often I guess I feel unhappy. I'm all in pieces with joy when he brings me over to the sofa and we sit down together. When he brings my hand to his lips I can feel myself blushing. Roger's so charming and suave when he wants to be._

_"I'm glad you apologised," I say, and now he's moving in toward me._

_"Don't even worry about it anymore. That's the past. You're here now; let's move past it and make up."_

_Before I can even say anything Roger's moving closer to me and kissing my neck, and I can feel his lips on my skin. I love the way Roger makes love to me, and normally when he starts doing this I melt, but it's not really the time, is it? I shrug him off and put my hands up, getting in his way. He's still trying to get his hands on me when I push him away finally, and he stands at attention for a second like he's trying to understand why I don't want to be intimate right now. Is it possible that he really doesn't understand? Does he even understand what exactly he did today? I mean, I know he says that he knows, but if he can really think of sex at a time like this does he actually know? Then again, Roger always thinks of sex, I think._

_"Wait second, Roger. I just wanted to talk for a little bit first. Not the whole time. We can play later, I think, but for now I just want to talk about what happened."_

_"Oh, Cora," he says as he goes back to sliding his hand down my back and trailing his lips along my neck, "why bother? We both know what I did was wrong. We both know I won't hurt Maisie that way again. There's nothing to talk about, baby. Let's just kiss and make up."_

_"No, baby, come on. You said something really mean. I just want to know that you know you shouldn't talk to anyone like that and that you feel bad about it."_

_His hand is creeping across my chest now, playing with my breasts and he's kissing me now, in that way he does where his lips move slow. I love his kisses, and the way his arms feel around me. I love the way it feels when he touches my bum just like he's doing right now._

_"Come on, Cora. It's nice when we make up like this, isn't it? You know I love the way you feel."_

_"Well, it is, yes," I admit as I curl my legs into myself and lean my head back. No use trying to stop him anymore, not when it feels so good, and not when he refuses to give up like this. "You're so persistent."_

_"Can you blame me?," He asks as his lips drift over my shoulder. His eyes are closed, and it looks like they're closed tight. He seems like he's feeling sort of tense, I guess would be the word. Tense. He's got his eyes closed so tight as he kisses my shoulder and my collarbone. "With this body how am I supposed to keep away from you?"_

_"You're so tense, though, Roger. Are you sure you really want to make love tonight?"_

_"What do you mean, tense? I'm not tense at all. I'm just lost in this moment with you, baby. I want to make it up to you. You know, because I ruined all your hard work."_

_I'm looking at his face, all twisted up like it is, and he pulls me close again to kiss my lips. Something just seems off about him to me. I don't smell alcohol on his breath. Sometimes Roger has a bit too much to drink, I'm sure you've noticed somewhere along the line. When he does that sometimes it makes him a little extra randy, if you catch my drift, as if he could be any more of a dog than he is. And sometimes when he's had too much drink and it makes him horny, then he gets defensive or lost in all his bad feelings, and that makes him tense like this._

_"It seems like you have something weighing on your mind, though. I can't get past it somehow."_

_He pushes me away, stands up and then he lets out a loud, annoyed huff of breath. I sit up straight and fix my hair because he knocked it all out of order while he was trying to get me naked, and he turns to look at me. His eyes are stony and he's rolling them at me like somehow I'm the bad one for stopping to make sure he was okay._

_"Of course I'm tense, are you really that thick headed?"_

_I hate it when he gets mean like this and starts talking about how he thinks I'm not very bright. I'll show him someday that I'm not stupid like he thinks I am. One day I'm going to have my own business, you know? And I'll make a good amount of my own money, and Roger will finally see that he just didn't see it but I've been smarter than he thought all along. He'll be proud of me too, I know it. Roger has so much more going on inside than anyone thinks, and that's what I love most about him._

_"Now what's the use of asking something like that, dear?"_

_"You threw me out of your house and then showed up in the middle of the night to surprise me to talk about it. You sort of blindsided me. Of course I'm tense. All I want to do is make love to my girlfriend, and put the whole sad business behind us."_

_I guess that makes some sense. He pulls me back in again, and shuts his eyes again, and starts kissing me. I'm so tired of trying to convince him. I guess if this is what he really wants…_

_"You really want this? Instead of clearing the air and maybe just spending some time together without this?"_

_Now he's pulled me into his lap. I guess this is exactly what he wants, and he's right...I did blindside him a little bit. Maybe I owe it to him. I throw my arms around him, and now I guess it feels okay, but maybe I'm not really in the mood…_

_"Oh, Roger, dear, I'm afraid I don't think I can summon it tonight. I'm sorry. I'd really just like to be with you tonight. You know, sit together and maybe cuddle, like couples are supposed to?"_

_Frustrated, Roger pushes me off of his lap and back into the sofa like I'm a sack of rubbish. I'm watching as his eyes bounce from wall to wall, rolling further back into his head each time. It's like everything I say automatically upsets him. All I wanted was perhaps a hug, or a kiss, maybe. I wasn't asking him for anything difficult or anything._

_"You know, Cora, you come here unannounced, and leave me totally unprepared to see you. My place is a mess, I'm very tired, I'm stressed out...and all I want to do is make love to you. Now would you be a good girl and get naked for me, please?"_

_I did what Roger wanted, and we had sex tonight, but it wasn't satisfying. I just kept thinking about the way he talked to my new friend like that, and how he's just over it already like it doesn't even bother him that he hurt her feelings so. I just keep seeing his face how it looked then, when he said that to her. So I don't enjoy myself tonight, and I end the night feeling lonely as he turns over in bed and drifts into sleep without kissing me goodnight or even holding me at all before he did it. I really want somebody to be loving with me, you know, the way they're supposed to be when they're in a relationship. Am I wrong to want that? Can he ever give it? Why do I want it from him? I could find someone else tomorrow if I wanted to, but I don't. I'm crazy about Roger to the point where I just had sex I wasn't interested in having so he'd be happy. I just want him to be happy, but he never, ever is. Maisie's so lucky because it seems like David is always happy. I guess I don't want Roger to always be happy, but I suppose it would be nice if he were sometimes, other than when he's trying to have sex with me. Roger's always grumpy and he hardly ever has any fun, I feel like. I want to help him learn to have fun._


	14. Rosemary - Cambridge, March 2006 - Rosemary's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally we get to meet Rosemary, Syd's prim, proper, and mousy little sister who's spent her life caring for him. Is she more than what she seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm only giving you four chapters this week because next week begins our St. Tropez saga!

I’ve never forgiven the lot of them, all those people in that whole Pink Floyd circle. Bunch of self important, stuffy, ignorant, privileged little uptight whiners, all of them. They certainly love to do a lot of talking, don’t they, especially that Roger Waters, that horrible vermin. That boy Roger Waters talked such a big game to my big brother about being in a big famous band, and getting lots of girls, and being loved by everybody. My big brother Roger Barrett was so painfully in love with him that he fell headfirst into fame and hysteria, because as you can very well see, my brother would follow the one he loved to the ends of the Earth if they asked him. Of course I’ve never forgiven the lot of them, but there was only one I never had to forgive, and that’s the one who’s here. And that’s the only reason I even considered allowing him to fly her out here and live out this happy family fantasy he has convinced himself he needs. 

Do you know what it’s like to be told ‘Dear, I’m very sorry, but you’re going to need to care for your brother. I can’t take it anymore, Rose, I just can’t. He gets out of control. I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t live there anymore, Rose. I can’t.’? Do you know what it’s like to have children of your own, but have to devote your life to someone so profoundly ill that you barely have any time to exist as yourself outside of all of that? Between a husband, a son, and a family member so constantly spun out into chaos, you never have a moment to ever sit and fucking relax for a second before you spin out into chaos yourself! 

I cannot remember the last time I had a day for myself without Ian, or my husband before he passed, or Roger … and the worst part, truly, is that the older I’ve gotten the worse it’s become with my brother if only because in recent years he’d been getting so physically sick, it wasn’t long before I was going to have to move in anyway or risk triggering his … issues … by having to hire in home care. That was, of course, before I was informed by Roger that he’d directly disobeyed my request never to contact May Wells again. 

Make no mistake, this was absolutely for May’s good, and not my brother’s, nor for mine, because I loved having May around. I don’t care for her particularly, and I care less for her now than I did back then (I find her to be a loose woman, to be quite honest with you. Too sexually liberated. It’s unattractive in a woman of such an age. I also find it a bit disturbing to see a woman of such an age with no husband and no children, perhaps. There’s something not quite normal about it. Makes one wonder what’s wrong with her.) However, I had asked him never to contact her, and he’d contacted her anyway. What a headache that had been. 

I always liked having May around because it made my life so much easier. She can do everything for him that I can do, and also have sex with him, which has definitely helped his disposition. Of course, I’m assuming, but I have no doubt she’s having sex with my brother. She’s just the type of woman who would come in and take care of an old sick man and have sex with him outside of marriage. 

Oh, but now of course they’re getting married, you know. Of course you’ve heard, I’m sure they’ve both made a big to do out of it. Good for them, I suppose. I have absolutely no idea what on earth she sees in my brother as a romantic or sexual companion, but more power to her. I suppose I’m supposed to feel that way, though, aren’t I? But I also feel I’m being sort of realistic...what could a woman like May Wells, Ms. See Everyone I’m Not Just An Heiress I’ve Got A Real People Job Too And Lots Of My Own (But Not Just My Own) Money, see in my brother...who would...unfortunately...probably not usually be able to attract such a woman? 

It’s not that I think in any way badly of my brother, not at all, you see, but I do know how he is. I know what he looks like, and how he is, and I imagine that living with him must be somewhat unpleasant if it’s anything at all like it was for our mother. Of course, if she’s found some way to have sex with him, I’d imagine it’s very much unlike it was for our poor mother. Allowing a man to have sex with you always helps even out his temprament, doesn’t it? It makes it much more pleasant, living at home with a man, when you let him have sex with you on a regular basis.

When I found out about it I suppose I sort of had mixed feelings, you know, but wouldn’t you? On one hand I suppose one has to feel a bit of relief knowing soon they’ll no longer have to shoulder the entirety of the burden anymore, right? Would you hold it against me if I admitted that I’d felt the teensiest bit of relief? Also, though, I suppose it did sort of feel odd, as if I should probably put a stop to it, but it all just worked out so very well, you see. It was awfully convenient. Just as I started to become despondent, impatient, frustrated and resentful Roger goes out of his way (with my cheeky son's help) to directly disobey the foundation of every request I have made of him (I feel) since 1969: Leave May Wells alone, Roger. 

The way he fell for her...I've never seen anything like it before or since, and I've certainly never experienced anything like it myself. I remember how he came home and raved about this pretty girl he'd met: my brother a young thing of 21 all dressed up like a rock star, and I, of course, my pathetic 15 year old self - a gawky little ginger beanpole in pigtails- who was by all accounts just enamored with him and the very ground he walked on. His face was all lit up like a Christmas tree when he told me her name, Maisie, and all of these things about her eyes and hair and laugh, but then added on at the end she's Roger's new girlfriend, though. I could see by that spark of mischief in his little boy's eyes that poor Roger Waters' relationship with this young lady was not long for this world, and I wasn't wrong. When my brother wanted the attention of a lover, he got it, even if the person in question never saw him coming (I'm speaking, of course, about Roger Waters now, and not May Wells). And when she moved in with him, well he was happy and healthy as a lark...until he wasn't. And I know it isn't her fault, the poor dear, she was not even 21 herself and taking care of a sick young man like that. Imagine how that must have been for her to be doing all that so young. And then I found out weeks after those boys from Pink Floyd had taken her out of his house after he'd...well, you know what he did and you don't need me to refresh your memory...and they left him all alone. And that is why I'll never forgive not one of them (although Mr. Gilmour is the closest thing to a decent person of the four). 

From that moment he first burst through the front door of the house he's living in now to tell me all about "Maisie" to right this very blooming second while they're doing who knows what my brother has been hopelessly, desperately, and stupidly in love with her, to the point of shunning a nice young woman who showed interest in the early 80s (he was very polite, but very firm - he was waiting for someone, he'd told her, and simply couldn't live with himself if he led her to believe he had even a momentary interest in anything beyond a platonic friendship), and then making sure there were no more opportunities for interest by being cold on purpose to most people he met. No one has ever loved anyone, not one adult to another, the way my brother loves his Maisie, and so I knew that to try to thwart his plans after he'd made them was simply a fool's errand.

I feel as if this has been my life forever, taking care of my brother. It’s been since at least the 90s that it’s fallen specifically to me, and sometimes Ian helps out where he can, but it’s taken up so much of his life as well that I feel shame when I need to ask for his help. It feels as if it’s my burden, and not his, and so by asking for his help I’ve proven myself unable to do my job. When Roger was at his worst, breaking his windows and burning his paintings, and screaming at all hours of the night. Disturbing the neighbors with the behavior, it was terrible … When he was at his worst I oftentimes felt, I suppose, like I was going to come apart at the seams. It wasn’t only the emotional impact on my own self, but the humiliation and embarrassment were unbearable. Having to explain to angry parents why windows were being smashed, why bonfires were being started in the middle of the night, why their children were being screamed at … it was horrifying. And it was all the time. Everything you’ve heard that I say in public isn’t true? It’s all true, every last word. Of course we don’t talk publicly about how awful it was to deal with Roger in those years. It’s no one’s business, and these days with the internet everything spreads like wildfire. I will never publicly admit to anything. As far as the public knows, nothing is wrong with my brother. That’s how I prefer it, and that’s how it will stay for as long as I have anything to do with it. But that doesn’t make what they say any less true, because unfortunately every last terrible word of how bad it was is true, and that’s been my life for all these years: Roger makes a mess such as another frying pan left clumsily on the stove to burn while he’d gotten absorbed in his own mind or in a painting, or another terrible painting fire in the backyard, or tearing out the entire garden he and Mum had planted, or … I could go on and on and on, you see. I could go down a list of occasions where my brother has brought nothing but chaos, poor mental health, negativity and stress to my life. Anyhow, Roger makes a mess, I come to clean it up...this has always involved, of course, basic medical care, transportation, and housekeeping. He can’t always be trusted to take his own medication, and so I’ve always monitored that for him. He can’t be trusted to cook his own meals sometimes, so oftentimes I’ve had to prepare them for him. He can’t always be trusted to keep his house clean, and so I usually clean his house. He can’t always be trusted to get from one place to another, and so I drive him. Do you see a pattern here? 

I certainly do, and I'm so ready to move on. I've been ready to move on for years now, and I finally have my break now that "Maisie" has come home to Cambridge and into my brother's bed. It's a well-deserved break, as well. No longer will I have to be the bearer of such bad news as "I'm sorry, Mrs. Collins, very sorry to hear that your son was frightened by my brother's screeching in the middle of the night" and "I wish I could tell you it won't ever happen again, Mr. Farnsworth, but I've got no way to guarantee that", because from the second she moved into that old house I've

All but lost my purpose, I suppose. 

She does it all better than I do, also. She's a better cook than I am (it hardly counts - Americans have a wider flavor palate to pull from, and she eats all this strange bourgeois food), and I know he is too polite to tell me. I've inspected every inch of the house to try and find something wrong, and she cares for it better than I did, plus she's gotten Roger to help her do it. She's a better "nurse" than I am, too: he has his medicines every morning promptly at breakfast time and before bed, shows up to every doctor's appointment 15 minutes early, and gets his blood work done with no fuss. I feel as if I've had one purpose for so many years now, and I've been outperformed! 

May Wells got my brother off drugs so I didn't have to. Now she's making my life so much easier again just by being here and taking him off my hands. He's living so much longer than I planned.


	15. Rick - St. Tropez, France, 1969

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick tells of a terrifying situation that happens on the beach during a beautiful, but tense, day. Will Roger's courage change the course of things for him?

_Ah, so we've finally gotten to France after a few months of putting it off to make sure a girl was okay. I want to shake David Gilmour sometimes; he’s such a big dumb beefcake. You're not even with the girl, you knobhead. You're not even her boyfriend, you thick-headed jock, she's not even at least trying to be with you, but you're gonna insist on putting off an international gig to help her feel better? I don't get it at all. At least we're here though, but of course he brought her. It's so obvious David's in love with her that I think she's an idiot herself for not seeing it, from him or Roger. Roger's so obviously desperate for her too._

_It's a nice day for the beach, though, it really is. The sun is shining, beating down on us relentlessly, but it’s not really uncomfortable. It's a warm, balmy August day, and the water is just warm enough to swim instead of just wade. The girls are all looking cute in their swimsuits, especially my beautiful, statuesque, but quiet and quirky Jane with her black high waisted bikini that makes her figure look so curvy. Her flaming locks of wavy hair flow down over her breasts like wine and her iridescent alabaster skin glistens in the warm sun of the afternoon. She’s lying over to the side reading some kind of fantasy novel, as she always is, but inside her mind is a party I can never stand to leave._

_Amelia's got on a red one piece bathing suit with a cutout in the middle to show off her flat, naturally tan stomach. Her long, dark brown hair is pulled up in a high ponytail, and her brown, swarthy skin looks healthy and glowing in the sunlight. Maisie's wearing the cutest little pink bikini (also high waisted) with white polka dots, her long, luxurious mane now sprawled all over her neck and shoulders and back, wet like a mermaid’s. All of their bathing suits seem to suit their personalities: Jane mysterious and uncomplicated, Amelia sexy and fiery, and Maisie innocent and cute._

_The guys and I are tossing a ball around, Jane's off sunning herself with her face buried in a book, and Maisie and Amelia are playing in the water, splashing about and laughing, bobbing in and out...riding the waves. It's a very peaceful, fun day with even Roger seeming to be in a rare sunny mood. Makes me feel really sad for poor Cora because she'd love to catch him actually enjoying life and being happy instead of being a sour, cranky, nitpicky little tyrant like he so often is. She hardly seems to get Roger at his best, but then again...we hardly ever do, either. In fact, Roger’s seldom at his best._

_"Toss the ball here, you tosser," Roger barks at David like a mean old dog, a wicked smile on his long, thin face. He wants it to look like he’s joking, but I don’t think he’s joking._

_Seems he's been testier with David than usual. Even in the studio or at practise he's being an ass to him almost all the time recently. Whether he's snapping at him or calling him names disguised as a joke or picking on him more than the others for not playing or singing things right he's been targeting and stalking him like a cat. It's actually becoming very funny in a dark, cringe sort of way because David hardly ever pays Roger and his crankiness any mind; he just sort of lets it roll off his back. He shrugs it off constantly. Sometimes I wonder if besides the times when David does get angry at people and explode it's possible that he feels very little at all. He's just such a happy little stump man that until he explodes nothing appears to bother him, and I think that just makes Mr. Onions even more pissed off at him. If I were constantly trying to egg someone on because I was a bored, pretentious, angry little fucker I'd certainly be very frustrated when it never worked. One day David is going to snap and beat him up, and you know I'll be there with fucking popcorn and making fun of them. You know I love their constant stupid fucking drama even though it complicates my life so much._

_"You got it, fucker," David responds with a hearty, good-natured laugh._

_I can see he's still not bothered. He's taking the piss out of Roger, but Roger just looks even more furious. David does exactly as he asked, and tosses him the ball, but Roger throws it on the sand with all the fury of an angry six year old boy who’s losing a game. It kicks up a little cloud of sand particles: that's how hard he'd thrown it. After this display of childish bravado the entire atmosphere of the area seems to stand still: Nick and I are staring in shock, David looks completely baffled, and even Jane stops to turn her head. She pulls her sunglasses down and when she sees the two guys puffing up their chests, preparing to fight, she slides them back up her nose and turns back to her book. Good idea. If I could get away from this I certainly would, but I can’t. It’s just too good,_

_"Whoa, Roger, no need to be a poor sport, mate," Nick says as he retrieves the ball and tosses it to me, but Roger just stands there like the creepy old scarecrow he is, a look in his eyes that I can only describe as being wild...intense...untamed. A viper ready to strike at his prey, but he’s standing so still I wonder if he’s plotting his next move. He probably is. Who am I kidding? He definitely is. If there’s one thing Roger is, it’s cunning._

_What a stupid bleeding baby, though. Can't even take another man calling him a name even though he called the other guy a fucking name first! Are you really going to call David a bloody tosser and then get angry with him for calling you a fucker in response? Why does Roger think he isn’t supposed to ever get back what he dishes out?_

_"Yeah. Come on, Rog, don't get angry at him. He was only taking the piss out of you because you called him a name first."_

_David looks dumbfounded, as if he just thought that it was alright to tease Roger in response to what I guess he viewed as teasing. It doesn't seem to be simple teasing, though. But we all know Roger is an envious little bugger who would sell his soul to be anyone else but himself. He even dropped his real first name to take on Syd’s real first name, and he steals things from other people's music all the time, but don’t tell him I told you. I trust at this point you know not to tell anyone else whatever I say about them, anyway._

_"Don't call me that, Dick," he spits at me like a snake spitting venom. I knew he’d strike eventually._

_His eyes narrow into slits when he looks at me, and damn, I'm actually afraid of him. He's got these crazy, scary eyes when he gets like this...steely like a robot. An evil fucking robot. I don't know what happened to Roger (I don't buy that the explanation is his father dying when he was a newborn, nobody turns into an asshole from that...I heard his mother’s a real piece of work, though...) to make him such a bitter, angry, pessimistic fuckhead, but something did, that's for sure. It's fair that he called me Dick since I called him Rog knowing he hates it, so I'm gonna just let that little dig slide._

_"I'm not your enemy, Roger. You can calm down and step off."_

_He backs off of me, but turns back to David, and I can see in his ugly horse face that he's ready to hit him, but I have no idea why. David never fucks with Roger in any way. He's either friendly or indifferent, and so I can't seem to understand why Roger is being such a fucking prick to him. Probably has something to do with that fucking girl, though. Coming in and fucking up my band, god damn it. All I want is to play music, but here we are with the bassist and lead songwriter fighting over a girl with the guitarist and mixer. Fuck it all. Will there ever be harmony again?_

_"Come on, chap. I'm just playing, like you were. I know you don't think I'm a tosser, buddy. Don't get your knickers in a knot."_

_Yeah, David, the only problem with that theory is that I don't think Roger was playing with you when he called you that. I think he meant it, the envious little rat._

_Roger shrugs, backs off, and goes back to tossing the ball to Nick. Nick tosses it to me, his eyes still wide with bewilderment, and I toss it to David, and it continues like this even though now there's a big black cloud over the entire affair because as usual Roger ruined it. I think I might switch his name from Mr. Onions to Mr. Ruin because as everyone will probably tell you, Roger ruins everything. If it isn't his being entirely too bossy and thinking the band is his (and running things in the studio as if it’s his) it's his all around black cloud personality, but either way, Roger ruins things, including this formerly fun, carefree day. Sometimes I wonder why I'm in a band with him at all. David may not be as smart as Roger or as good of a songwriter, but at least he's agreeable and wants to be part of a band, a collective effort, not the leader who must always have his way. (And at least he’s got a pleasant disposition and people enjoy being around him.) After a few minutes, I simply cannot stand the stink of his gloomy grey energy anymore, and so I excuse myself and go lie down next to my girlfriend, who is always my refuge from all the drama this band brings to my life._

_"Hi," she says from behind her book._

_Jane’s pale white skin is glowing as the light hits it, her body almost blends in with the sand. If not for the towel she’s lying on she may only look like a bathing suit and a head, but I find that glinty white skin of hers to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in the entirety of my life, all things considered. Everything about Jane is the most beautiful everything I’ve ever seen. Everything: from the way she lies there, unphased by everything going on around her, mind lost in the world of Peter S. Beagle and his last unicorn. I adore the way her hair sprawls out behind her like a blazing inferno, twisting in and combining with the grains of the sand baking in the sun. Eyes I know are the most emerald green out of anything that’s ever existed in the universe focused solely on lines of words on a page, but hidden behind a very simple black pair of sunglasses. She’s not putting on any illusions that she cares for fashion at all. She’s the most brilliant, strange, ethereal creature I’ve ever laid eyes on; she’s magnificent. Regal. She’s sublimity personified: every inch of her, and every bit of her that’s inside the shell. I get lost in looking her over before I lace my fingers with hers, feeling the smooth touch of ivory against my fingertips, and she barely acknowledges me any further. I know she knows I’m here, though, because I feel one gentle squeeze of my hand._

_I move in closer and rest my head on her bony, white shoulder, trying to crane my neck to see what it is about this unicorn princess that’s got her so fascinated, what it is about going off into another world that makes that the only way she can survive these gatherings with my friends, or with anyone, really._

_The sun is baking me, but I don't care because her chest is just so smooth, and so comforting when bathed by the rays of the sun warming her. I love my Jane perhaps as much as Syd loves Maisie, and I'm going to ask her to marry me one day. And she’s going to say yes. I’m certain of it: there’s no one else I’m meant to even waste time laying my eyes upon._

_I'm relaxed now, my eyes closed, my face softened. Not a care at all in the world. Can’t even hear what’s going on with all those blockheads over there anymore, and thank god for it. I'm breathing in the floral, distinctive smell of her sunscreen, and I'm listening to the happy little sounds of Maisie and Amelia playing in the water. They're laughing their arses off, the two girls, giggling and screeching as I like to imagine they bob in and out of the water and splash each other. I’m sorry to be crass, but it’s not my least favourite thing to entertain when I need a wank._

_They're laughing and jumping and swimming until everything goes quiet, and then they're not laughing anymore, and then I hear Amelia's piercing scream from far out in the ocean: shrill, urgent, ear-piercing. Bloodcurdling, even. The kind of scream one can feel in one’s very spine. Both Jane and I bolt up onto our knees right away, trying to find the source of the commotion, whatever it is that’s got Amelia so in a hysteria. Out in the clear cerulean waters I can see Amelia screaming and wailing like a damn banshee or a dying cat. Her hands grasp at her dark hair in a panic, she’s yelling for someone, anyone, and all her calls are punctuated by terrified sobs. I can’t see Maisie anywhere, and so by my estimation most likely what she’s so panicked about is exactly that._

_"Somebody help me! Nick! Nick! Nick, she went under, I don't know where she is!"_

_Amelia keeps screaming, and I can see both Nick and David getting ready to run into the water to get Maisie, but before they can even think to act Roger's halfway in, sprinting so fast he's almost a blur. Whatever muscles he’s managed to build in those skinny carrot stick legs are rippling as he instinctively bolts into the water on high alert. It’s as if he didn’t even have to think about it before he took off. I understand...I’d do the same for the woman I’m sitting here next to now, her long, willowy arms wrapped around my own._

_I swear I can see a trail of light behind Roger, that's how fast he's running. With no earthly fear at all, not even an ounce of hesitation, he dives headfirst into the fury of the waves. He’s swimming with all his might out to where Amelia is standing, who’s still flailing about like a fish out of water being absolutely useless. His body propels itself through the water like a speeding bullet, and he's all gangly arms and legs. When he reaches Amelia he dives under the water for a few seconds, searching the otherwise tranquil seas for one of only two people he truly gives any fucks about in life. A few more seconds pass, and I still don't see him at all. She must be far out. David and Nick have run over to us at this point, and we're all watching out for Roger as Amelia saunters out of the water, squeezing the excess sea water out of her dark chocolate hair. She rubs her arms and goes over to her husband and slips her arms through his._

_"You see how he ran out there? It was like lightning," Nick says, his mouth hanging open like he's lost in a trance._

_David stands away from us a bit, off to the side. He doesn’t bother to acknowledge that we’re still here: every tiny wrinkle in his forehead as he stares out into the water, hands cupped around his eyes acting as binoculars, is just one worry. Every spark of panic that I bet is alight in his eyes, though I am not nearly close enough to be able to see, the way I bet his pink bow-shaped lips are set in a straight line...all of it makes it obvious that he’s afraid, but he looks like an idiot not having made it out there first. Makes him look hapless._

_"I'm just worried he won't get to her in time," David stutters, tripping over almost every word as his vocal cords tremble with worry, and his words come out shaky._

_I pull Jane closer to me so she can burrow her head in my chest and try to shut this out. David’s trembling with fear over there. He couldn’t do what Roger’s doing if he tried to, so thank god Roger went out there instead of him. He wouldn’t be in there for twenty seconds before he had a panic episode and started to drown himself. It would all be funny if the situation weren't so serious._

_Amelia lays her head on Nick’s shoulder. Her dark brown eyes are wide and afraid, and I can see tears forming in them. She's afraid for her friend, and who wouldn't be? I know Roger is a strong swimmer, so I'm not worried._

_Confirming my suspicions I see Roger emerge from the water with Maisie's limp body in his arms, and he carries her back to shore, staring down into her expressionless face the entire time. David heaves a heavy sigh of relief and runs toward them, reaching Roger and Maisie before they even get to the shore. David tries to approach, but Roger waves him off as he places Maisie gently on the ground and starts trying to pump the water out of her lungs by doing chest compressions. I watch as he bends over, and it looks like he's whispering something to her, but I've got no idea what he could be saying. He's still compressing her chest, desperate for her to breathe, and finally she spits out a fountain of water and comes to, gasping for breath. She coughs, and next thing I know Roger is pulling her into a tight hug, holding her like he was terrified he'd never see her again. His arms are pressed hard into her back and her waist, and he rocks her, and she throws her arms around him too, probably out of gratitude. It's almost heartwarming, watching them embrace so tenderly as if they'd never broken up. He grabs the back of her head, and before he lets go of her David crouches down next to them._

_I would hate to be either one of those poor blokes right now. I'd hate to be Roger because Maisie's still gonna hate him after this, but I'd hate to be David because if Jane weren't my girlfriend it would kill me to watch her embrace another man, especially one of my band mates. Maisie pulls away from Roger, but not until she squeezes him one more time, and he gladly obliges her, stroking the back of her hair with one hand and grasping desperately at her waist with the other. She's such a fucking bloody idiot. Any woman with half a brain would see that Roger is in love with her when he acts like this, or really, when he’s around her at all, since it’s always so fucking obvious. When she pulls away she moves right toward David, who hugs her himself, and unlike the desperate, grateful hug she gave Roger, she melts into David's embrace, and I notice her softly smiling as he holds her close to him and looks down at her, checking if she's okay. She certainly didn't smile like that when Roger was holding her. Maybe Maisie does know that David likes her. Maybe Maisie likes him, too._

_Look at poor Roger over there sulking like a rejected teenage girl. He just saved this girl's life, and she's already forgotten all about him. He's staring at her and David a lot like he did that day at Grantchester with Syd. He looks jealous, sad, heartbroken and deflated. He probably thought he'd impress her by saving her life, and she'd fall into his arms, but it looks like all the poor, pathetic ghoul is going to get out of it is a thank you hug that she probably doesn't even really realise she gave him. He's looking on still, but then he looks down at his hand and starts doing that weird thing he does with his ring when he gets nervous, spinning it around his finger like that. His eyes are glued to the sand, and his head drops, his hair falling in his eyes, probably hiding dramatic despair that he's going to brood about for the rest of the time we're here. It'll probably ruin everyone's time. My only hope is that he'll go off with a groupie tomorrow night after the show and leave everyone else alone. Sure, he'll be cheating on Cora, but at least he'll be out of our hair._


	16. Cora - Seven Oaks, Kent - March 2006

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora, having received Maisie's email, debates telling her everything she knows and all the real reasons why she left.

Well, my goodness. I've just gotten the eeriest, strangest email from a very old friend through my business email. I wasn't ever expecting to hear from Maisie Wells again, not after I'd abandoned her friendship the way I did. She's never come looking for me before. I haven't even opened the thing yet because it's made me so nervous. Could this be the scathing communication from my best friend that I've been expecting for all these years? Why now, though? If she'd wanted to chew me out surely she would have done it years ago. It's not as if I'd blame her for it. 

The subject line just reads "Hello". I'm a bit nervous to open it up and read it because I wouldn't like to fight with Maisie. She really was my best friend, you know. The only reason she wasn't my maid of honor at my wedding to my ex husband is that my sister objected to it. Otherwise it would have been her. We were so close that people often joked we'd make a nice old lesbian couple. David used to love to joke around about that a lot, and I sometimes thought it might not be so bad. I should have known then that I wasn't straight, but it took a lot of failed relationships with men before I finally realized it. Then I met Judy, and now finally at the ripe old age of 56 I'm finally happy. I would maybe never have realized it if it weren't for that sexual tension she and I often felt, and if it weren't for the boys telling so many jokes about it. 

I let my mouse pointer sort of linger over the subject line, nervous to actually open the email. I didn't abandon Maisie because she did anything wrong. After everything I found out it hurt me too much even to look at her, although it was no fault of her own. I knew it was no one's fault but my ex husband's, but all of a sudden looking at my best friend brought me nothing but pain. Otherwise I would have gone to her and David's house to ask for a place to stay until I could get on my own feet. It was simply too painful.

Well, here goes nothing. I click on Maisie's email, and there it is, but it's not angry:

_Cora,_

_I hope this email reaches you, and not somebody who works for you, because it's private and I've put a lot of thought into it. It's been hard not having your friendship for all these years. I've missed you terribly, but I didn't seek you out because maybe I was angry with you for running off, or I thought you didn't want to see or talk to me and I was respecting what I thought were your wishes. I'm not completely sure what it was that's kept me from contacting you til now, but I've been thinking of you lately. I'm in England, and I'm assuming you're still here also, and I would love to be able to reconnect maybe, if you'd like to. You might not believe this at first glance, but I'm here with Syd Barrett, and he's asked me to marry him. I accepted, and I'm supposed to have a bachelorette "party" (aka hanging out with his sister with no weed), and I thought I might really like for you to come so we can see one another again. I'm not sure what happened all those years ago, although I do understand why you'd leave Roger Waters, but whatever it is I hope that I never did anything to drive you off. I cared for you, and still care for you, very deeply, and it would mean the world to me to have you back in my life. I maintain no contact with Roger Waters at all, so that's not something that you need to worry about, if you were worried about it. I desperately hope that you respond, I really do. If I ever did anything to make you no longer want to be my friend I'd like to take the opportunity now to tell you how deeply sorry I am for doing so. You certainly do not owe me an explanation, but I guess I'd like one. Really, I always thought we were very close, and it hurt me when you disappeared._

_Meanwhile, on a happier note, I see you really did end up starting your own beauty supply business. I'm thrilled for you. I bought some things in support._

_I really, truly hope that I'll hear from you soon._

_Love,  
M_

How much should I tell her?

I think what I'm going to do is type out the entire truth, and then afterwards I'll decide what it's best to reveal, and what it's best to keep quiet. This is a really, really and truly delicate situation where anything I reveal could make things difficult for a number of people, and I'm not trying to cause any difficulty for anyone. My life has been so peaceful since Judy and I met three years ago, and I have no intentions of disturbing that peace we've created in our life together.

I crack my knuckles and get ready to finally put in writing everything that I've been keeping to myself all these years. Whether or not I want to actually send all of it, I'm not certain yet, but if nothing else it will be cathartic to write it down.

_Maisie,_

_I'm so happy to hear from you. I've been worried all these years that we'd never speak again, or that if we did, you'd chew me out for abandoning you. You have no idea how happy I am to read your letter and discover that you haven’t done that at all, but instead approached me with patience and kindness, even support (thank you for your purchases!) despite my abandonment of you. Things like this are exactly why I loved you so much in the first place, and why our friendship is one I will always, always cherish._

_First of all, I am so shocked to hear that not only are you living with Syd Barrett, you’re marrying him, too??? Something must have changed in order for that to be happening. What is it? I have to be honest, I’d expect you to be with my ex husband before him. On that note, I would love to attend your bachelorette party and save you from the terrible, uptight bore that is Rosemary Barrett. I’d be happy, too. Would you like to meet up once on our own before that, though? It might be nice to catch up without her buzzing around bringing down the mood._

_I definitely do owe you an explanation, but it’s a very difficult explanation, and it might cause you some stress. This is something I’ve been sitting with, having told no one, for decades now. I want you to please be prepared for some information that could be scary, but will definitely be shocking and unexpected. My intention isn’t to scare or shake you, but instead to help you understand both why I left my ex husband and why I stopped talking to everyone, including you._

_I was thinking of leaving Roger anyway, as you know, and I had been for a number of years. I won’t go into most of the reasons, because you already know them: he was a cheater, he was cold to me, he never let me be as big a part of his life as I deserved, and he made a habit of acting as if I didn’t exist. I felt trapped by Roger’s sexuality and deprived of love and affection. It always seemed as if he was hiding something from me, something important. Something I should have known. I spent years trying to figure it out, trying to fit all the pieces together. Nothing made sense. There was never another answer besides the one Amelia always gave, which was that Roger was an asshole. He was an asshole. He had, I realized years later, virtually no redeeming qualities in a partner, but I spent so many years chasing him and trying to make him become who I wanted him to be, and who I thought I knew he could be. He couldn’t be that person, though, and I realized I was dreadfully unhappy and wasting my life with him._

_Here’s where it gets to be very tricky, and may be very hard for you to deal with, so please bear with me:_

_What ultimately drove me to leave Roger in the middle of the night was that the night I left was the night I got all my answers. It was the night everything came together and suddenly made sense._

_Please, when I tell you this, I really need you to promise me that you won’t blow me up. My life is exactly how I want it now: I realized years ago that I’m gay, and I’ve been seeing a woman named Judy for three years now. We’re very happy, and I finally feel like myself. I finally feel like I’m no longer searching for a part of me that’s missing. It turns out that all along I was looking for the wrong men because all men are the wrong men. Funny enough._

_So…_

_What I found out that night was that Roger was in love with you. Not just that he was in love with you, he was utterly obsessed with you. He had diaries filled with thoughts of you, and songs he’d written for you that he never turned into anything. He had pieces of your clothing, a cutting of your hair (and I remember when you’d discovered that someone had cut it - that was the eeriest part), one of your hair ribbons, and other random things he’d collected and shoved in a box. I realized that all of these things had been collected without your knowledge, and then I read that he had been stalking you. I’m so sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Roger had been watching you through the windows of both Syd’s and David’s houses and following you from here to there for years, it seemed. I often wondered where he went in the middle of the night. Sometimes I’d catch him coming back and be completely baffled as to what he had been doing. It turns out that he would often do this, go on excursions to your house during the middle of the night. Then of course he’d come home and have sex with me, without fail. Every time I caught him coming home from spying on you he would want to have sex with me._

_What led me to go and find all those diaries and trinkets that night was him crying out your name in his sleep like he was in despair over you. Then I remembered how he stared at you at our wedding, and how you assured me it was only because the two of you didn’t get along. At first I was angry at you. I thought that you must have some idea, but you had never told him no. I was wrong: you never had any idea, and he was doing this all unbeknownst not only to you, but to David, Rick, Nick, me, Amelia, Jane, and everyone else who ever came in and out of our circle. He was even doing this knowing that his best friend Syd would rather die than know any harm had ever come to you. I couldn’t look at him anymore, I was horrified and I felt beyond betrayed. I was disgusted. He knew how I cared for you._

_The reason I never spoke to you is that I truly felt you were better off never knowing, and I thought the band was better off never knowing, and to be honest with you, every time I thought of you it hurt as well. I knew it was never your fault, and that really, it had nothing to do with you, but that changed nothing...thinking about you made me think about the pain I felt when I realized that my first love, the man I married, never had a heart that belonged to me. I was never the one he wanted, and he stalked you behind my back, and behind your back. I do struggle often with feeling like I should have shared this with you before._

_Please respond so I know that you don’t hate me, or do hate me, or whatever you want to say to me. I understand that you may feel betrayed that I have kept this secret from you. I would also please ask you to consider keeping it a secret. I understand that you might want to scream it everywhere, and tell everyone, but I really just want to continue to live my life in peace._

_Please be in touch. I am so much looking forward to your party, but hope we can speak again before that._

_Thank you for contacting me, and thank you for listening._

_Love,  
Cora_

Now, I’m going to look this all over and decide what to keep. Is it really worth it to tell her everything? What purpose would it serve? Am I thinking of telling her because knowing it will serve her in some way, or am I just trying to clear my own conscience? Deep down, I know I’m doing this to clear my own conscience so I don’t have to feel guilty about keeping it a secret anymore, and on second thought...I don’t need to mess up Maisie’s life that way. I’m going to take all that stuff out, and I am just gonna say that I found out he had been in love with someone else all along, and that the pain was too much to bear so I ran off and didn’t talk to anyone. That isn’t a lie - I never saw or spoke to anyone from the Pink Floyd circle ever again after that night, and I was better off, but I have missed my friend so badly. 

I press ‘send’ after I finish taking everything about Roger’s feelings for Maisie out. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, and honestly, I think that I was originally right: she’s better off not knowing. Being told all this now, so many years later (after I’m 100% sure Roger has given up and left her alone), will do nothing but add pain and stress to her life that especially now when she’s about to get married she doesn’t need or deserve.So I’m not going to tell her now - maybe I’ll tell her sometime in the future after we’ve gotten close again, and after she’s been married for awhile, and that way it won’t be such a burden to bear. 

Am I making the right decision?


	17. Maisie - St. Tropez, France - 1969 - Nick and Amelia's Cabin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and Nick hang out and talk about her boy problems while they share a joint, but are they truly alone?

_I can’t believe what happened today! It was so crazy. I was just swimming and I got caught in a rip tide, or something, and next thing I knew Roger was hugging me so close to him. I guess he got really scared because normally, him hugging me is not something that would occur to either of us. We really, really don’t get along. Look at what a dick he was to me before we left when Cora gave me that makeover. I know he apologized, but if he didn’t hate me he wouldn’t have done that, right? Still, it’s weird that if he hated me he’d run to my rescue like that. Nick told me that both he and David were ready to go, too, but Roger was too fast for them._

_I’m here with Nick now in his and Amelia’s hotel room. Amelia went out for a walk with Jane, who was so upset by what happened that she had to go calm down, and Amelia’s the only one besides Rick that she trusts. Jane gets so upset about loud noises and commotion. I don’t really understand her, so I leave her alone most of the time. I feel bad though, she must think I don’t like her. I do, I just don’t get it. She’s really quiet, has trouble holding conversations and really can’t talk about anything but two or three subjects. Amelia is interested in one of the things she can talk about, and so they get along. I would like to be friends with Jane, I guess, but I’m really nervous about upsetting her. She’s so fragile._

_It’s good that Amelia left though because Nick and I haven’t had time to hang out together in awhile, and I’ve missed talking to him. He’s the shyest of everybody, if you can believe it considering how shy David is. He would probably play his drums behind a wall if he could. That would be pretty funny, wouldn’t it? Playing behind a wall. Hah._

_“You know, Nick...I haven’t really told anyone this yet besides Cora, but …”_

_“I’m glad you’re friends with Cora. She’s a nice kid, and nobody seems to like her too much, do they?”_

_“She’s really nice. I like Cora a lot, and I like spending time with her. If Amelia doesn’t like her, that’s pretty sad, I think. You should talk to her. Cora’s such a nice girl, come on.”_

_“I didn’t say she wasn’t, kid.”_

_“Anyway - don’t tell anyone this, okay? I guess I sort of need advice from a man, but you can’t tell anyone I told you. It’s so important you don’t even say anything to Amelia.”_

_Nick shrugs his shoulders and laughs at me. Not loud, but enough where I can tell he actually thinks it’s funny to see me so nervous. He shakes his head, his shiny black curls waving and bouncing. He’s got girl hair, I always tease._

_“Alright, alright. I won’t say anything.”_

_“Even to Amelia.”_

_“You got it. Even to Amelia.”_

_A warm, evening breeze flows through the open window of the small cabin. Everybody’s got cabins, we’re not in a hotel. I ended up in a two bedroom cabin with Roger and David, but David is sharing the room of two single beds with Roger. He offered to sleep with me, but people don’t know we’re doing it, and so I didn’t want anyone to think it was something other than what it is. Or at least what I think it is, or what we’ve told each other it is. I don’t know what it actually is. It’s possible it really is only just the two of us sleeping together as friends so I don’t have to suffer with nightmares, but Cora thinks David likes me as more than a friend, and I think I might like him, too._

_I take a piece of paper that’s sitting on the desk in Nick and Amelia’s cabin, and I scribble down David’s name on it. I doubt anyone is listening, but just in case they are, I don’t want anyone to hear me. I show it to him, and he smiles at me._

_“I really like him, I think.”_

_“I know you do, Mays.”_

_“What do you mean, you know I do?”_

_“You’re not exactly discrete. I think anybody can tell. The only one who can’t tell is him, anyway.”_

_“That’s not true. Do you really think so? That he doesn’t know?”_

_“He has no idea. Trust me.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Just trust me. I can tell.”_

_“So nobody’s said anything?”_

_“Barely. Blokes, we don’t give a toss who our friends have crushes on like you girls do. You all talk about that all the time, you know, we often don’t.”_

_I climb up onto the desk and sit on top of it, with my back against the wall right next to the window. I pull my legs up against my chest and lean my head against the wall and stare at the ceiling. Nick lights a joint, takes a puff off of it, and passes it to me. I inhale, and it’s so strong it burns my throat, and I cough. Could have been worse: one time Roger had weed so strong I threw up. This isn’t so bad. It’s strong enough that I get stoned after one hit, and that feels really nice. My head starts spinning, and I cross one leg over the other, letting the top leg dangle and bounce while I slump down a little bit. Nick pulls the chair away from the wooden desk, turns it around and sits on it backwards. He’s always got a serious look on his face, but it might be his moustache, maybe, that makes him look like that. I know I don’t talk about Nick much, but that’s not because we aren’t close. We just often share things that I don’t really want to talk about with anyone else. I don’t have a lot of friends who are men. It’s mostly coincidence, I guess, but ever since I lost weight and started to dress nicer I find it harder and harder to be friends with boys. They just seem to want something more often than not these days. That’s one of the things I like about David, though. Even if he does like me he never pushes me. He never pushes the boundaries farther than I signal that I want him to. He never makes things uncomfortable. Nick doesn’t either, but it’s different with him because I’m not attracted to him, and he’s safe also because he’s married. There’s never been one time where I even thought for a second that Nick had any intentions but my friendship, and that’s such a comfort. I really, really treasure his friendship and his company. He’s a cool guy who’s really down to earth and honest, but funny, and smart. He likes to talk politics, too, and it’s such a relief because I don’t think anyone else really does. We could get lost talking about Vietnam for hours, probably._

_“What can I do? I want to do something to maybe give him a clue about how I feel.”_

_He stops to consider, and takes another puff, and then passes it back to me. Another reason I like Nick so much is that sometimes it’s nice to have a boy’s point of view when it comes to… you know, other boys. If I’m going to be honest (don’t tell anyone!) it was Nick who told me I should go for Syd in the first place. He said he could tell Roger wasn’t making me happy, and that I should go with what made me happy. The next night I walked out on Roger and went to see Syd in the park, and the rest was history. He felt terrible after what happened with Syd and I, but got angry at me when I tried to reassure him he shouldn’t blame himself. Said it wasn’t my job to make him feel better about any guilt he felt, and that he’d deal with it himself. I really respect that, don’t you? When Roger apologized to me for not coming to check on Syd and I he really kind of made me feel like I had to reassure him that he wasn’t guilty of anything._

_“You know what I think you should do is write him a note and tell him to meet you on the beach, and then just sit on the beach and watch the stars and all that. He’d like that. He’s that type. And you don’t have to do anything forward. In fact, I’d say don’t do anything forward. Just make yourself a little available, you know? Not too available, but available enough. Dress up a little fussier than usual. Make yourself seem interested, but not too interested. Do you understand what I’m saying?”_

_“I think so. A note?”_

_“Yeah. Just something simple like ‘Meet me at blah blah blah at this time’, or something. Nothing complicated. Guys like girls who aren’t too forward. But I know you. You couldn’t be too forward if you tried.”_

_“This is so hard.”_

_“I know it’s hard, but you can do it. Do you really think you like him enough to take a chance on it?”_

_“Yeah, I do. I really do. And today really proved it to me once and for all, you know?”_

_“Yeah, I saw the way you guys hugged. I could tell you both have feelings for each other. I never believed I’d hear you say you wanted to take the first step though. Although Jane makes you seem outgoing, you’re one of the shyest girls I’ve ever met. You must be really serious about this, then.”_

_“I think I am. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, and the more I think about it the more certain I am about it. Maybe I want to take it slow, but I do want to connect with him that way. I haven’t really felt quite like this before. Of course, you know, I loved Syd so much…”_

_“I know you did. You don’t have to say that. Just because you haven’t felt quite like this it doesn’t mean that you’ll ever love somebody more than him. And even if you do, it’s okay. You don’t owe Syd anything, Maisie. He hurt you really bad.”_

_This is something I still struggle with. I still love Syd, and I still miss him. My heart hurts for him all the time. I know he didn’t mean it, I know it. He isn’t a bad person. He wouldn’t hurt me like that just to hurt me. Something had to be going on. He’s so sick. Sometimes I think about him at night when I’m lying in bed, and even though David is there, I’m still so sad. Syd was my first love, and I thought we were going to get married someday...I guess I was wrong, and that hurts so bad. It breaks my heart to be wrong. I never thought there would be anyone else for me besides him. And still I guess to this day I feel that way, but not all the time obviously...just often enough that when I think of Syd it leaves a hole in my heart where I know only he belongs. I know that you might be thinking I’m crazy because Syd did something so awful to me, and I think I’m crazy too, trust me. I think I’m insane because anyone who could still feel so warmly toward someone who hurt them that way (even though I am also afraid of seeing him again, so it’s a really mixed bag) must be completely bonkers and out of their mind. I have to be out of my mind. But I miss Syd so often. Not the Syd that locked me in a closet. Not sick Syd, not distant and spacey Syd, not dirty unwashed Syd...I miss the boy I fell in love with, the boy I made love to in that park. I miss the boy who took me home and took care of me and let me fall asleep in his arms on the couch holding a cup of tea that he took away, and then he led me to bed and held me all through the night. I miss that boy. I miss the boy I lived with, laughed with and cried with. I miss him every single day, and he’s gone, and I don’t know where he is. I don’t know if that boy: my lovely, flighty, wispy beautiful boy, will ever come back. He could be gone forever, lost to some strange illness that can’t ever be fixed, and I don’t know if it’s my fault._

_“Nick...do you think it’s my fault, what happened with Syd?”_

_“No.”_

_“Not at all?”_

_“No, Maisie. Why would it be your fault? Syd did a whole mess of drugs all the time before he met you. He’d been wrong for a long time, we just didn’t see it.”_

_“Because he started to go really downhill when he was living with me, and then it all came to a head, and I guess I feel like if I hadn’t moved in maybe he’d be okay right now.”_

_“Nah. To tell you the truth, he would’ve been worse off. What happened was going to happen to him anyway, I think, but nobody cared for Syd before you. Not the way you did. We all liked him, and Roger was obsessed with him, but nobody lived with him and doted on him and really, truly loved him like you did. He went out with a lot of really mean, angry girls. Syd is a real submissive guy, you know that. He likes a girl who can take charge a little bit, and I think that he thought those types of girls would take care of him because they could do that for him, take charge. But they were always very mean to him. Lindsay, the one that came before you, she left him stranded tripping on acid at a party. Took his car and left him there in a house full of people he didn’t know. Syd’s mother is a mess who likes to pretend nothing is wrong, his sister doesn’t know what to do, his father’s dead, and he never gave us any clue as to how badly off he was, so we only helped as much as we thought we could. You were the only one who loved him that way. I think without you he would’ve been so much worse off. You shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened to him. It was always going to happen, you know? Somebody can’t eat tabs of acid on and off all day long plus smoke pounds of cannabis at the same time plus get hardly any sleep and end up all well.”_

_“Thanks. I really did love him. Maybe I still do. Maybe I’ll never stop.”_

_“You don’t have to stop loving him. Why would you have to stop?”_

_“Because he hurt me so bad.”_

_“You can’t help how you feel. If you still love Syd, that’s okay, but are you sure you’re ready to move on?”_

_That’s something I think about a lot, too. Can you love more than one person? Is it possible? I think it is, I don’t think there’s any reason why I can’t love someone else if I love Syd, too. It’s not like I’ll ever see Syd again, so would it really hurt? I’m not quite ready to move on. I’m not really talking about completely moving on, I guess I’m just talking about trying to test the waters._

_“I’m not really talking about moving on just yet. I think I just want to kind of test the waters to see if maybe there’s something there. I’m not looking to rush anything. Not at all. I don’t think there’s any good done by rushing, especially because I rushed the first two times, you know?”_

_“Well at least you’re aware of that, you. Go on and write your note with another piece of that paper and then go leave it on the desk for him to see it. You can do it.”_

_I bend over and scribble a note on another piece of paper:_

_Meet me under the light on the boardwalk at 8 tomorrow night. Can’t wait to see you! <3 M _

_He looks it over, nods and slaps me on the back._

_“You sure this is enough?”_

_“It’s perfect, kid. Go get your man. I think Amelia is gonna bring Jane back soon, and I’m gonna go hide in the bedroom so my presence doesn’t scare her.”_

_We both laugh. It’s not that we’re making fun of Jane, but I guess it’s a bit weird that she doesn’t want to talk to anybody and gets so scared so easily. We try not to joke about it behind her back, we really do, especially because Rick is just wild about her, but sometimes it feels like she doesn’t like any of us._

_I’m getting ready to go back to our cabin, but on the way out I swear I can hear someone scampering away. Has to be the wind or something. I didn’t hear anybody outside before. It’s not a long walk at all, only a few feet. I open the door, and nobody’s there, so I slip it onto the desk and head into my room to get pajamas so I can put them on after I shower. I should also leave Roger a note thanking him, I guess._


	18. Maisie - Cambridge, March 2006 - Syd And Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and Cora hear one another's voices for the first time in decades, and they are enjoying their time catching up until they are interrupted by a sudden phone call from Rosemary....

We managed to arrange a phone call. Me and Cora, I mean. I'm so nervous! It's been years since I've heard Cora's voice. It's been years since I could clearly remember what Cora looked like. If you'd asked me back then if Cora and I would ever have fallen apart I would have looked at you like you were crazy, and maybe even have gotten offended. Maybe even angry. Cora and I were as close as two girls could be without dating each other.

Now I understand all these years later. I wish she'd told me, but I understand why it was all too painful. Everyone from the group reminded her of Roger, she said. She couldn't have possibly looked at any of us without seeing him. It's amazing that she found out he'd been in love with someone else, but she never said who it was. I wonder. There were never any weird women around, and I never saw him with anyone else besides chicks he'd pick up after shows.

Alright, I'm going to call her now. I'm just going to bite the bullet and do it even though I'm so nervous I'm chewing my nails.

Syd went out with his sister today to the shops, and then she's going to take him back to her house because he found something in the yard he wants to paint. I don't know how he manages to sit out there in the cold, but he's such a dedicated artist that it's really no wonder. If you ever get to see him sit out there and paint, watch. He gets so involved in whatever it is he's looking at, and his eyes squint and widen as they survey and wonder and consider. I never see him look so serious as he does when he's painting. Right now he's painting the bench in the garden in Rosemary's front yard. It's a rickety wooden bench he built. He painted it white, with these red, green and blue vines and flowers intricately splayed across each beam of wood crudely assembled with cinder blocks painted a brilliant blue. It's a rough, Scandinavian looking thing with the coat of white paint chipping and peeling away. It used to be the sofa. He really loved it, and asked if he could keep it at Rosemary's. That was up to her, and of course she fought tooth and nail against it, and of course I approached her privately about it and insisted she let him keep the bench in the garden. It was harmless. She's so god damned superficial and conscious of what her stupid upper crusty type neighbors think of her front yard. 

Thank god Syd isn't here because I'm totally going to rip her apart to Cora, just as soon as she tells me more about this woman Roger was apparently in love with behind everyone's backs.

I let my finger hover over the call button for a second. There's a weird dizzy feeling in my stomach like I'm on a rollercoaster ready to go down the very first drop.

Alright. I'm pushing it.

It's ringing. Still ringing. 

Still ringing!

"Hello? Maisie?"

"Cora?"

"Yes! Yes, it's me! Oh, yes. Wow."

Her voice is soft and girlish like pink body lotion or sweet butter. She still has that pretty Cambridge lilt that makes Syd also sound so delicate and Roger sound so arrogant and formal. 

"Oh my goodness, it's really you."

"I should hope so," she says with a laugh, "I certainly do try, anyway. Ha. How are you, Maisie, dear? I've missed you so, I have. I've just felt awful all these years, simply awful."

"No, you shouldn't apologize. Really. I … You know, Cora, I'm so happy. I really am just so happy here with Syd, thank you for asking how I'm doing. How are you?"

"I'm so happy to hear that. I don't know what the circumstances behind that are, or if you want to tell me, but I'm so happy you're happy with him. Marriage, huh? Is it your first time?"

"Oh, yes, and probably the only time," I say, and I can hear that I sound sad, which must be confusing for her. Of course it is; I haven't told her yet how Syd is dying.

"Well, one would hope, right?"

"I didn't mean to imply - Syd is very sick, that's all."

The line goes quiet: Cora is starting to understand what I meant when I sounded sad, I think, and maybe she isn't sure what to say. It isn't the kind of thing one just knows how to respond to. 

"Oh, I think I understand what's going on. I'm... I'm sorry to hear that, Maisie."

"No, don't be. We can get to that later. Tell me about your lady friend, and about your business. Tell me everything."

"Maisie Wells," she says with that funny classic Cora sternness, "you are not allowed to tell me you are getting married to Syd Barrett and then get away with saying nothing about it. There's more than enough time to talk about my business and Judy, and we'll do that, but you must understand how what you've told me sounds!"

"Well...he called me, and he asked me to visit. Got right to the point, too, it was so sweet. I went against my better judgement and decided to come, and oh my god, Cora, am I glad I did."

"You're happy?"

"I'm ridiculously happy. He's the man I always knew he could be."

"And you're the woman you were always supposed to be."

"Well, so are you."

"I know, and you know it about yourself too, don't play stupid with me. So tell me…tell me everything! You're being awfully vague."

"He charmed his way back into my heart. I never meant to fall in love with him, but he made it impossible to say no."

"You did say he was always so charming."

"He was, and he still is. We love to go for walks around the botanical gardens, and I love to watch him paint lately. It's something else, that's for sure."

"Did you propose, or did he?"

"Oh, he did, but I accepted with enthusiasm."

"That's just so wild. I never would have thought. Not after everything."

"No one would have, least of all me. I wasn't expecting it at all, completely took me by surprise and came out of left field. I wasn't expecting Syd, but he's here. Or rather, I'm here."

"What do you think of being back in England again? Do you still love it here, or are you over it already?"

"I love it, but I always did love it. It doesn't seem to have changed a bit since the last time I came here."

"And when was that?"

"I was here briefly in 2002 to stay with Nick and Amelia for a week, but that was the first time since 1988."

"Can you tell me if the sex is good? I'm old and bored!" 

She says that with a self deprecating sing song tone to her voice, and I know that she doesn't see why it's a sensitive subject, but…

"You know, it's complicated. We haven't really…"

"No sex? You?"

This isn't a surprising reaction from her, or from anybody, really. I love sex, I mean I really love sex, and so anybody that ever knew me well would react with that kind of tone to their voice. I'm not surprised or insulted that she sounds unable to believe it. If I were someone else, I might not believe it. I might accuse Maisie Wells of lying about that, and I would have kept pressing her to admit the truth, but Cora must know better because she doesn't press...she takes me at my word. What a breath of fresh air. Gloria wasn't so polite: she still insists I'm not telling the truth.

"That's right. I don't know, I guess it just hasn't come up. He hasn't asked for it or tried to take it there, and I guess I'm going at his pace. To be honest with you I don't really feel like it's missing. I think our relationship feels complete and comfortable without sex, and I'm happy to go without."

"Maisie! I never thought I'd hear you say such a thing! Are you alright, dear? He's cast some sort of spell on you now, hasn't he?"

"It feels like it sometimes, I think. I think he has. He's a Disney princess."

"That's certainly a way to put it!"

"Syd is... he's special. I wouldn't really call him a man or a woman in entirety. He's like a mix. Some days he still wears eyeliner like he did in the 60s."

"I see what you mean. That's sweet. Tell me about him. What's he like?"

I could go on forever about how wonderful and perfect Syd is, so maybe I will, since she asked.

"He's so young, and he's full of life and happiness. He told me he's dying, but I don't see it at all. At all, ever. He's sick, for sure, but I'd never guess he was dying. He goes out some days for bike rides across town, and gardens, and plays with the neighborhood kids. He paints and he makes his own furniture (I replaced some of it with new furniture, but we kept the old sofa - I will get to that…), and everything he buys he repaints new colors. He's brilliant and incredible, Cora. I love just watching him paint, or especially when he's scoping out a new subject and watching it move and the way the light hits it. He's got these eyes, these...ugh...I could just keep going."

"Well...do, then. Go on."

"What about you?"

"Stop it, you old cow! We'll get to me, you know. You're getting married. Go on!"

"Well, okay. Fine. He's got these big brown eyes, they're always lit up, and when he smiles his entire face smiles with him. It's like a chain reaction, or something. Every inch of his face is illuminated in a smile. And every time he laughs, I laugh, too. His laugh is big, and infectious: childlike and sweet. The most insignificant thing can make Syd laugh...and then he won't be able to explain why it's funny, only that it is. It's alright, though, because I only need to hear him laugh to understand why it's funny anyway. And I think one of my not favorite things about him is that you'd never guess it, but when he has his mind set to something, he stands firm on it to the very end. He's very sure in himself and what he thinks, and he's forceful about it. His nephew tried to hire a stripper for his bachelor party. I even gave my blessing...you know me. I see no harm in it. He refused, and apparently he left his nephew's own bachelor party over the same thing. I love that about him, how serious he can be. And how devoted he is. I adore his devotion and his resolve. He waited for me, you know."

"He did not! Wait...did he really? Did he actually wait?"

"There's never been anyone else."

"I wish I could say I was surprised. Were you expecting me to be? Roger used to tell me how crazy Syd was about you. He even said he wouldn't be surprised if Syd never met anyone else."

"Now, speaking of Roger…"

The line goes quiet now, like she wasn't expecting me to broach the subject. How could she not expect it? If you mention something like that you should be prepared to explain it.

"I don't think that's worth discussing, what I told you about Roger. It was...it was such a long time ago, anyway. I'm doing so much better now. I realized after I left, in fact on my way out the door, how much happier I was without Roger holding me back."

"Well of course I don't want to dwell on it, but it's a shock. I had no idea he had feelings for anybody else. We didn't see him hanging out with anyone else. Do you mind if I ask who it was?"

There's silence on the line once again as Cora stops responding, almost like she's considering her response.

"Oh, no one you know. It was an old girlfriend, and it was such a huge shock. I just... it's still so painful sometimes, you see. I really put my all into that relationship and I got back fuck all from him, and that was the absolute final straw, finding out there was another woman."

"Was he sleeping with her?"

"Oh, no. No, no. She had no idea at all."

"And what led up to you finding all this out?"

"He called out someone's name in his sleep, and that switched a light on inside me. I always knew there were girls around, you know, the groupies and such. That was common sense... apparently no one in Pink Floyd got the memo about the rock and roll lifestyle except my ex husband."

She brings to mind one of the things I remember most fondly about David: even when I wasn't with him I could always trust him on the road. Cora hadn't been so lucky. 

"That's true," I say with a small chuckle. 

"So I wasn't stupid...I knew there were other women, but I also knew they meant nothing to him, and so I could sort of put it behind me and soldier on, as they say, but finding out there was someone else he had real feelings for...that made everything fall together so nicely. I could finally see everything for what it was."

"And what was that?"

"That Roger had nothing to offer me because he has nothing inside."

Roger is the closest thing to an empty vessel of a human being that I've ever met, so it makes sense she'd say that and come to that conclusion.

"And that's the short version, I gather," I say.

"Just about. I realized I had been letting this man treat me like a brainless groupie for years, but that I actually had goals and dreams of my own, and I decided it was past time to make them a reality. I stuffed a lot of the money I got from him into a savings account, gave the right to access it only to my mother, and I started working. I became a makeup artist shortly afterwards, and made a decent living, but my goal was to open my own store. I did get there, eventually, as you can see, but it took so long that I decided to forgo the rent piece and pay for a domain name instead. The future of retail is online, anyway, so really I'm just getting a heads up on others. I do very well, too, but that might be just word of mouth from all my famous friends. I have confidence in the products I sell, and I'm making quite a better living now."

"I'm so proud of you. I perused your site a bit, and I plan to order more. The rose water toner looks promising. I bought a sea salt spray for my hair. I'm growing my curls back in."

"I wasn't aware they'd gone away."

"I started getting my hair straightened after I left David for a change, and it kind of stuck. I thought it was easier."

"Oh, Maisie. It is not easier. Grow those curls back in. What a shame you got rid of them at all. You always had the most beautiful hair."

"Enough about me. So tell me about Judy. Last I heard, you were straight as an arrow."

"I never was, I just thought I was because until I met you I didn't really think of it any other way."

"Oh, come on, are you saying you had a crush on me?" 

I'm joking, of course.

"I still don't know. Maybe. It's hard to say because I didn't realize until years later that I liked women, but I think I may have a little. Don't worry, though, or let it go to your head, because when I met Judy I was sure."

"That's how it should be."

"May I go on endlessly about my lover now?"

"Obviously. I had hoped you would."

"Judy was actually a client that I picked up a few years ago while I was starting out with the website and still taking some gigs on the side. You know, makeup gigs. She wanted a makeup look for a benefit for her job, and I fell in love with her almost right away, and that's when I realized it full on. She's 10 years older than me, and she's a CEO of her own business. Independently wealthy, driven, ambitious...she helped me get my business off the ground. We started out as close friends, a lot like you and me, in fact. I gave her makeovers, but she gave me advice and support. She's a hiker and a mountain climber, and a biker. She took me to Colorado and we hiked in the Rockies. I took her to Paris and we got our hair done. She took me to a baseball game in Boston, and we sat in the front row. I took her to a fashion show in Milan and we sat in the front row. I feel like we just fit. We just work, and it's what I've always known I needed. I'm home. She feels like home to me."

That's how life with David always felt: like home. Like with him is where I always belonged. But now...now I feel home with someone else.

"That's how I feel with Syd. I feel like he's home, too. It feels so natural, and so real."

"Isn't it beautiful, being in love? Being so madly in love?

"It's really beautiful." The line beeps. I look at my screen, and it's Rosemary's number. Something must be wrong with Syd. "Hey, Cora, I've really enjoyed talking with you, and I'm going to call you again soon, but Rosemary is calling me, and it's probably about Syd."

"Ooh. Of course. I'll talk to you soon. I love you, Maisie. Bye!"

"I love you too. Bye." Quickly, I switch to Rosemary's call. "Rose? Is everything okay?"

"I'm afraid not. We're at the hospital. Roger's having some problems with his blood sugar. I suppose he left his insulin at home. I'm surprised you didn't pack it."

As much as I want to wring her neck, I let it go, and take a deep breath.

"I did pack it, Rosemary. Perhaps you misplaced it. Anyhow, I'll be right there. You tell him I'll be right there."

"He's very anxious for you to come, so please do get here quickly."


	19. Roger - St. Tropez, France - 1969 - The Boardwalk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger eagerly awaits Maisie's arrival at what he thinks is their date, but a misunderstanding will send him into an absolute tailspin.

_I'm so fucking giddy I wrote a song last night. I finally wrote acceptable lyrics about Maisie (only once before have I managed it - the song If, and that song was as much about how I wish I felt about Cora) and the beautiful encounter we had by the sea after I saved her, and how now she's discovered that she's ready for me to love her. Finally. When I saved her she must have realized that only I can love her this way._

_As soon as I heard Amelia scream I knew something had happened to Maisie, and I didn't care what it was: I had to protect her. I sprung into action: it was instant. One second, and I was ready. Not even a second: a millisecond. No man was going to stand in my way. I saw Nick and David in the background trying to get to her, but I was going to get her first, and I did. I found her limp underwater, having passed out already, and carried her close to my chest back to shore. Her body was weak and loose in my arms. Then I placed her on the ground, and while I worked so hard to get that water out from her lungs I bent over and whispered, "I love you, and I couldn't bear it if I lost you. Please wake up." I begged her to wake up until finally she did, and that's when I lost control and I pulled her so close and stroked her hair and rocked her just the way I crave and long for. She held me, too. Maisie held me, just like she did that day at Syd's. She desperately clung to me, and that's when I began to suspect that she might still like me, too, and maybe that I could even get her back. I'm not that stupid, and I'm crazy, but not so crazy that I can't feel how she hugged me. She was so desperate, so needy, so afraid, and all she wanted was my arms for her, only for her. We shared this beautiful moment, and I guess that's when it hit her: she never stopped wanting me, either, and she's ready now to tell me, and to do all the work of getting it all out in the open. I was stunned._

_I probably would have followed them even if I hadn't saved her, but I needed to know what she was going to say to Nick about it. I expected her to be disturbed by it, to tell him she hated the way it felt to be held by me, or maybe to say she wished I'd let her go._

_She looked incredible lounging cross legged in her high waisted red shorts, cherry patterned peasant top and sandals with with big white flowers on them. I wanted to lick her milky thighs, worship them, be completely imprisoned by them. Sometimes I think she could kick my ass with those strong legs. Her breasts were round and firm in that little top that clung to them in just the right way, and I longed to get lost in sucking them. I crave every inch of her body. I got so hard, I almost touched myself, but then I saw her write down five letters on a piece of paper, and show it to Nick, and she told him she liked me. I almost died. I was jolted. It was electric, it was enthralling. My heart was racing, I was nauseous, I was overjoyed and insane: stupefied, petrified, my stomach was heavy and twisted, my body was seizing._

_Nick said he could see it by the way we hugged, and told her to write me that note. And she did write me that note... oh god, I think I'm gonna be sick._

_I heard her approaching the door, and I had to scramble back to my cabin. Our cabin. She's right on the other side. I couldn't sleep knowing she was in there last night and probably awake thinking of me, too, and wanting me to knock and to come to her. I wanted her so badly I could taste it. I really thought about sneaking in, climbing into bed with her, and surprising her by crawling on top of her and kissing her lips, her neck and her collarbone. She'd wilt, tingling and trembling beneath me … thrilled by her fear of her desire... and I'd whisper in her ear about how I love her, how I need her more than any of this...I need nothing the way I need her, and I will have her no matter what. She'd give me her body, and I'd take her…she'd moan, helpless against me, unable to resist and I would quiet her with another loving kiss and an assurance that she could feel safe letting me take control. I'd touch every inch of her pure, unsullied skin … swirl my finger around in her lovely bush and dip it between her hot, wet lips. I'd make her squirm beneath me and move my hands up over her perfect little tummy and the peaks of her sharp hip bones. She'd whisper my name when I circled her sweet pencil eraser nipples with my tongue and grind against me as I talked of my love to her. I want her total and complete surrender. I want her to bend and break for me, to give herself completely to both my love and my lust for her. I need the heat of the round, pillowy softness of her body, and I want her to be so vulnerable after being taken by surprise by me that she can't resist. I want her to be my little pet._

_'I adore you,' I'd whisper in her ear as I pumped her full of my cock and she used her strong thighs to meet every thrust, 'I'll never, ever leave you alone. You're mine.' I'd pin her wrists to her bed, I'd kiss her neck with all the gentle sensuality I could muster, and I'd revel in the feeling of her melting beneath me, inviting me to love her._

_We couldn't be too loud, though, because David might find us. What would he do if he found me in bed with her? Would he beat me up? Would he assume she wasn't willing? Would he be jealous?_

_But David stumbled in drunk as all fuck before I could work up the courage to go to Maisie and make love to her. He collapsed into bed, so I could have gone, but I was so scared of him waking up and catching me and hurting me that I couldn't do it. So I sat on the sofa with a peach to eat and I wrote this down:_

_As I reach for a peach  
Slide a rind down behind a sofa in San Tropez  
Breaking a stick with a brick on the sand  
Riding a wave in the wake of an old sedan  
Sleeping alone in the drone of the darkness  
Scratched by the sand that fell from our love  
Deep in my dreams, and I still hear her calling  
And if you're alone I'll come home_

_It needs more, but I'll pad it with some stuff that's not romantic so it won't be too obvious._

_So I'm about to meet her in two hours, meaning I've got two hours to find the right clothes and shoes and cologne, and the right thing to do with my hair, and figure out everything I want to say to her so I don't spit out verbal diarrhea and hurt her feelings._

_I'm going to tell her she looks beautiful. I'm going to tell her how much I like her and how I've always liked her. I'm gonna hold her close and kiss her and take her to the sea, look at the stars with her. I'll make her love me tonight. I'll cast a spell on her, enslave her, and she'll let me keep her for my own: my beautiful, sweet housecat._

_None of these clothes I brought that aren't for the show are worthy of how good she's going to look.I really only have these black shirts and jeans anymore. Whatever. I guess I don't really have a wide array of things I can do for myself. But I brought good cologne, luckily, so I could score the best looking girls tomorrow night, but now I don't need any of them...all I need is mine now. The only woman I can see finally wants me. Those slaggy French girls won't even get a second look from me now... not when I know that I had her in my arms the night before._

_Should I drink beforehand? Nah, I shouldn't. If she smelled or tasted it on me it'd hurt her feelings, and I'm not going to hurt her tonight. I'm only gonna love her. I'm only gonna possess and adore her. I'm gonna bury my hands in her hair and kiss her on the boardwalk, right there where we stand. I'll tell her I want her to come stay with me again, and I'll leave Cora, and she'll be my sweet little lamb. She'll come home with me when we get back, and David won't even get the chance to get near her. I'll keep her in such ecstasy she'll wait for me to come home so we can worship one another._

_How did I get so lucky that I have her now? What did I do right? Is it only the fact that I saved her? Has she secretly wanted me all along? Why would she leave me, then? Was it really so bad, being with me? I know I wasn't a perfect boyfriend, but I tried. I don't know how to show someone I love them, but I also don't know how to tell them. There's some disconnect between who I know I am, and how others receive me, or who I appear to be to them, and I'm not sure why this is. I don't want to hurt people, or be rude to them, but I find them so infuriating sometimes, and I barely have any patience for them. I want to be different. I think I could be different with her._

_If only I could work up enough courage to tell her I love her so much, and that I've been here all along loving her. I've stood by waiting for this moment: the moment Maisie would realize she loves me, and she comes back to me. Now it's here. It's finally here. You could have had me at any time, Maisie. All you ever had to do was tell me, and you could have been mine at any time. It's okay that it's taken you so long to come around to me. I knew you'd come back someday._

_An hour now. Only an hour before I'm with her, and we're finally exploring our feelings for one another. Only an hour before I get my chance to fix everything and to do it all again. I'm actually getting a chance to fix all the mistakes I made with her before I realized exactly what I had all along. Only one hour until Maisie tells me she likes me too, and we walk the boardwalk together, and then lie on the beach together as the moon twinkles off the ocean, illuminating everything around for us, illuminating her like the angel she is._

_When I see her approaching I'll slip out of the shadows so she can see me, and I'll open my arms so she can come into them and we can embrace just like we should. Maybe I'll even dance with her under the moon... anything to make her melt and go soft for me. She's on her way to loving me exactly the way I love her. All I have to do is show her I'm safe, show her she can trust me. She can trust that I'll protect her from anything and anyone that would ever hurt her, that I'll comfort her and I'll make love to her until she can't handle anymore. I'll try to show her every single day how hopeless I am for her, and eventually, if I work hard enough for her love, she'll marry me. I know it. Tonight was the spark of hope that I needed to build the confidence to try to be her boyfriend again._

_I gotta at least have a cigarette. I'm so nervous. I'm killing myself with my anxiety. I can't breathe. My whole body hurts and I'm shaking. I wonder what she'll be wearing, and how she'll do her hair. Will she wear that sweet cherry lip gloss? I remember when we were first going out and she would put it on, and I'd always have to kiss her because that taste reminds me so much of her. I have thought about buying it for Cora so when we kiss I can pretend I'm kissing her best friend. I don't have to worry about that now though, because now I won't have to pretend to be kissing Maisie... I'll really be kissing her._

_There's no sign of David now, not really anywhere. I last saw him with Rick a few hours ago, with Jane, too. I don't know what they were talking about, but they seemed very hushed, like whatever they knew was a secret. Whatever, I don't need to know whatever it is they were talking about. I'm so happy. Before when we all met for practise she smiled, and she waved at me. She never does that. I knew why, too...she must be so nervous that I'll stand her up that she wanted a little encouragement. I was so shocked that I think I smiled at her too, but I don't really know for sure how I reacted._

_I take a puff of my cigarette...it tastes so good, and it really relaxes me, but it's nothing when I compare it to her taste...the taste of her plump, sexy lips...and how having her next to me relaxes me._

_You must not understand how happy I am right now. I feel like I could fly to the moon with nothing but my own body, not even any wings. I feel like I could climb Everest, or sail around the world, or write a platinum hit (maybe this song I'm writing will be it - I'd dedicate it to her at every show I ever played it at, and I'd bring her out afterwards and show her off - I'd be so proud just to have her with me). I've dreamt of her so many times in the past two years, dreamt of something exactly like this: Maisie comes to me, frustrated that no matter how hard she tries she can't quite stop thinking of me, and she tells me how she feels. If you told me before last night that I'd get what I wanted I'd have laughed at you and told you to stop trying to take the piss out of me. I'd have said that it was cruel to tease a man that way, dangling the woman he loves in front of his face on a string, so close he can almost touch her, but not quite. But no...you would have been telling the truth. She likes me, she really does. I'm not dreaming! I'm not fantasizing, this is real! This is so real I can taste it. It tastes like joy, sunlight...warm, summer sunlight like the sun she played in today... it tastes just like the Americans make their lemonade (and the way she makes her lemonade). And more than taste it I can hear that the sound of my happiness is the same as the sound of those salty, sparkling waves I pulled her out of. It smells like the shore, and the salty air, the smell of the sun on the sand and always when I think of how happy she makes me I smell flowers._

_I feel so on fire that it's like I could bounce all over this boardwalk I'm waiting on now. I've still got 10 minutes before Maisie is going to come here to meet me, and every dream I've had since I met her comes true. With each passing minute I can feel my heart beat faster and faster until I can feel it about to burst out of me and propel itself into the ocean and into the clouds until it came fluttering back to me. And my innards, they're just all over the place. Haha. I'd laugh out loud if I could bring myself to...I mean really, really and truly laugh. Not because I find any of it truly humourous except for the fact that these kinds of things never happen to me. They always happen to men like David, but never for me. Never. I'm always behind, waiting to be able to be the one in charge. Waiting for an opportunity so I don't have to actually earn it. You know._

_But finally, finally I win something other than cheap sex...not David. Me. Ha! If only I'd known this years ago. If only I'd known Maisie would come to me, while living with him, and tell me everything I need her to say. I wouldn't have ever gone near Cora, first of all, I'd wait. I wouldn't have suffered nearly as much as I have if she were the light at the end of the dreadful tunnel that it's been since I broke up with her. What a weight off my shoulders it would have been. I love her so much, and she's finally coming to me. Finally. I can show her, really show her, that I'll never take her for granted. I'll never let her feel unsafe or unloved as long as she'll stay with me. I can let her be weak. She finally knows that only I can let her be the scared, unloved girl she is, because only I can guide her and master her in a way that is safe and loving. She needs someone who will let her be innocent and weak, and David won't do that for her. She can't give up control to him. She can't trust a guy like him to be a soft, but stern protector of her surrender, and she knows that._

_Oh, holy shit. There she is. My god, she's incredible._

_Nick told her not to look too available, but even though she's not wearing anything overtly sexual I can't help but feel enticed by every single curve of her body. She doesn't ever look as available as she is, either. She looks like such an innocent little flower, but once you get her into bed she's such a dirty girl. But I like the innocence... she's wearing a long white dress with red polka dots that cinches with a red band at the waist, right where it needs to, and with a collar of white and red ruffles that fall around her shoulders. Her hair is long and loose, flowing, and she has a fake red rose clipped into it. I'm floored. She looks like she's glowing in the red, pink and purple light of the sunset._

_I take in a deep breath and I'm finally ready to approach her. I take one step out of the shadows and…_

_Oh, no._

_Fuck._

_Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. No. No, it can't be it just can't be. This can't possibly be happening to me._

_That note wasn't for me._

_It was never for me._

_It all makes sense now. The five letters on that piece of paper… D A V I D… not R O G E R. Fuck me. How could I have been so stupid?_

_And I know this because he's standing there with her right now, and they're smiling at one another, but not saying anything, just standing there smiling like idiots. They look so perfect together. They're both gorgeous and friendly, quiet and well liked. Someone like her couldn't ever love me. I knew it. I knew it was too good to be true. Maybe this whole time I've been lying to myself, and deep down I always knew she'd never think twice about me. I ruined it. I ruined her. I ruined any shot I ever had._

_I just want her to notice when I'm not around. I want for one time her to look around and say, 'Where did Roger go?' You couldn't possibly understand._

_I can't watch them anymore, and even if I wanted to I can't stay here. I can't. My body is forcing me to run. I can feel it in my bones, all I want to do is fucking sprint away and not stop until I'm in the safety of my own bed at home, alone. I don't ever want to see these people again, not one of them. No one except her. I don't ever want to look at David and his fucking stupid perfect face and body ever again. No, all I want is my sweet princess._

_This is disgusting. I'm disgusted. Fuck both of you, you're both awful. You're both so bad and mean and just the worst. Oh, god, he touched that flower she clipped in her hair, and she's smiling at him...that was supposed to be me. Fuck. God fucking damn it._

_I'm running like the fucking wind. I don't even care if they heard me running off. It would serve them both right. I can feel the fucking dead, hard weight of the wood of the boardwalk slamming against my feet over and fucking over again as I'm running full force and full speed toward the cabin so I can drink the whole bloody liquor cabinet and black the fuck out so I don't have to feel this wicked despair. I'm running so fast my heart is pounding and god, my chest is starting to hurt, but I don't even give a fuck. I just have to get the fuck away from here and back into the cabin. I can't be anywhere near them - how the fuck am I going to sleep tonight knowing all this?_

_I just ran past another beautiful couple walking along the boardwalk, and I want to fucking strangle them both. Who do they think they are with their arms around each other like that? They have no right. I hope she fucks you over, asshole. Or I hope he breaks your heart, you stupid cunt._

_Finally, I'm here. There's this charge that rushes through my body that makes me fucking slam the door and rush to the bathroom. I'm leaning over the toilet fucking dry heaving, but I'm not gonna throw up, not yet. My stomach feels like there's this slowly creeping spiked, thorny vine snaking around it, fucking constricting it. I can feel the thorns piercing my stomach lining. It burns. My whole body fucking burns! I'm crouched over the toilet like Gollum or something, I must look so ghastly and gnarled._

_God, there's this awful pain in my belly again. It's fire. It feels like scalding, acidic, poisonous fire. I know this feeling: fuck, I can feel it. It's a sob. Fuck. Damn it. I fall backwards into the fucking bathtub, damn it. Ugh, that really hurt my back and my neck, but I can barely even feel pain. I just have to let this out soon. I don't want to, but if I try to hold it off any longer I'm going to faint. I lean my head back and over the edge of the bathtub and fix my eyes on the ceiling, trying to stop it. One last ditch effort. It's worth the try. I hate crying. I fucking hate crying, and I only ever cry for her. I've only ever cried for them, but I don't cry for him anymore. The boy I loved isn't in there anymore, but she's still so close but I can never have her._

_And now I'm finally surrendering to the will of that sob deep within my stomach. For once something was going to go right for me. She finally noticed me, I had convinced myself of this somehow. My god, how the hell had I been so stupid? The sob is coming anyway, I sit up but then bury my head in my hands and start to tug at my own hair. Fuck. It finally fucking comes out, thank you. Thank you. It escapes from not just my mouth, but my entire body lets out this long, despairing, desperate sob that I swear I have no control over. It shakes and destabilizes my entire being, and it might have even shaken the whole cabin. It's loud, and that's an understatement. Thank GOD no one's here. But now that one's come out I can't stop the others. There's one solution to this, and it's in the cabinet in the living room. I've got to get to the alcohol, and once I start drinking I'll be fine._

_I don't know how the fuck i managed to drag myself to the liquor cabinet, what with all the heaving and sobbing and I don't know if I collapsed under the weight of it two times or three. You know the feeling of a sob that's deep in the pit of your body, and when it comes you can't seem to recover your breath no matter what you do. The sobs possess every part of you, and your lungs seize and your temples throb and your throat feels blocked. Somehow through all that I found the liquor cabinet, and I pull out the first big bottle of whatever this is that I find._

_It's clear. It's probably vodka...good. That's the best when you're this in this much fucking despair like I am right now. It tastes like nasty, dusty old fire. It's musty, but it still burns going down. I'm not sipping, oh no. I'm guzzling this thing. I might drink this entire bloody bottle. Maybe it'll kill me, huh? Maybe I drink the entire fucking bottle of whatever alcoholic beverage this is, I still can't tell, and it kills me. She'd care then, wouldn't she? If she found me dead right here on the floor in this stupid, ugly cabin, it's not even nice, fucking David's idea this was. I didn't want to do it, but of course no one cared what I wanted to do. Why would they ever? Why would anyone give a fuck about me?_

_Why don't you love me, Maisie? Why am I not good enough for you? How can I make it better? Can't you see how mad you drive me?_

_I should give up on her, shouldn't I? I should let her go and be happy with David, but I can't. I can't, you see. I'm fucking addicted to her, and if it isn't her it's this fucking booze I can't put down. One day she'll be mine. One day. I'll do anything I have to do, I'll even take her away from everyone and everything, but I don't want it to have to come to that. Why can't she just love me? I'm better than Syd. I'm not crazy like he is, I'm just hurting so badly, and all I need is for someone to love me, finally. I'm just so fucking sad and lonely all the time, Maisie, but I never felt lonely with you. I just want you to love me. The way you looked at David? That was supposed to be mine. You were supposed to be mine. I saw you first. I kissed you first. I made love to you first. I was the first boy to ever look at you that way, you told me. It was real: I loved you then, and I love you now, and I will never, ever let you go._

_My heart has never felt so broken. The sobs are quieting now as I get further and further into this bottle, this blasted bottle. At some point I have to stop drinking do you think? Should I just go until I pass out? Everything is getting a bit blurry now, it seems like. I feel warm. Physically warm. Not my heart, no. No, my heart feels so cold. It feels so, so cold without her. Tonight was supposed to be the first night of the rest of my life. I was supposed to be with her tonight. I was going to tell her everything._

_Maybe this drink will kill me. I've been guzzling it like a madman, and I'm getting pretty fucking light-headed. I keep seeing her over and over again at that moment right before he fucking walked over and ruined it when I thought for that moment that she'd finally belong to me tonight. I was overjoyed. Now I feel like I want to flush myself down the fucking toilet, god damn it all! I want to rot in the sewer like the terrible little rat I am!_

_Oh, fuck, I'm going to retch. I thought I'd be fine, but no. God fucking damn it. I'm going to fucking vomit everywhere. No. God, could anything else go wrong? Ugh, it's all over me and all over the carpet, and I'm so bloody pissed I can't even manage to get myself to the bathroom to clean myself off. I'm so light-headed i can barely even_

_I don't know. I forget, I think._

_I just want to hold her._


	20. Rosemary - Cambridge, March 2006 - The Hospital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosemary waits with Syd in the hospital for Maisie to arrive, and is none too happy about it. The two have an intense conversation in the hallway.

I know my neighbours meant well, but blast them to hell. What a lot of busybodies they are.

He had to collapse outside in the front yard, didn't he? I tried to force him inside after the medicine disappeared, but he wouldn't listen to me, the stubborn mule, and a lot of good it does him. I had no idea he'd even fallen down. I feel awful, like I should have checked on him sooner, or insisted he come inside as soon as we couldn't find his medicine. What kind of caretaker must I seem to others? Letting my poor dear brother collapse in the front yard while painting in the freezing cold like that? Old Mrs. Fenwick must think me such a negligent caretaker seeing poor Roger on the ground like that, all crumpled up and white as a ghost. Well so much she knows. I'm an excellent caretaker, today aside. Everyone in town knows it, they do. And so what if one time I wasn't seen right away. How was I to know? He didn't make any noise, he never called out for me. How was I to know that would happen at all, anyway? All he was doing was sitting there painting. I had absolutely no idea of how long it would take for him to get ill. May should really have done a better job packing his medicine, shouldn't she? Sometimes she seems awfully careless with Roger, you know. I wonder what the neighbours in that cul de sac must say about them, and about me having left him there with what to them looks to be a strange woman.

"Rosie, when is Maisie going to get here?" 

"I just called her, and so I'm sure she's already left and on her way."

After smoking some marijuana first, that is. What a nasty habit. So unladylike. She really is just in every way a loose, low quality woman who I'd have never chosen for my brother under normal circumstances. I'd have chosen a god fearing woman for him who'd never lead him astray with drugs and sex and whatever else it is she's got him up to over there. In my mother's house, no less!

"I wish she was here already."

"Yes, well, she's not, now, is she? For the past two months it's been nothing but 'Maisie and I this' and 'Maisie and I that', and I've heard just about enough now."

"Oh, it's just that I'm so happy, you know? I've waited…"

"Yes, Roger, everyone in town and their dog knows that."

If you ask me, this business about waiting for one's 'true love' is rubbish, and he's a fool for it. He's lucky she's a very easily manipulated little cog or else she'd never have been caught dead here, and I suspect he knows that about her. I know the type: formerly pathetic and sad, now hardened to the ways of men and the world, just dying for a sick old fool to bleed dry and use for her own sick pleasure. 

"And besides-" I continue, "I gave up my entire life to care for you, and never once have you been nearly this excited to see me."

"Oh, Rosie, you know that's only because it's different. It's not that I don't appreciate you, but Maisie is...well, you're my sister. She's going to be my wife. I feel differently about you both, that's all. I promise you. You know you're my best friend, Rosie. You know that. I think you're amazing and you take such good care of me. I should have been more considerate when I talked about her so much. I'm sorry."

As well he should be sorry. This isn't as if he's lived without good care for the past almost twenty years, oh no. He acts as if I never cared for him this well, or like good treatment is something that he only ever got from her. That simply isn't true. I have done my very best to provide him with the best care I could give him, and I don't appreciate being made to feel like chopped liver just because she's had the advantage of sex. It's really a very effective tool when used correctly, so good for her, I suppose. 

"Yes, Roger. Well, you should be. I have given up so much for you. And you couldn't even come inside today when I asked you to? Look what's happened to you now: you're lying in this hospital bed with your blood sugar levels all over the place. I told you to come inside, but you never listen to me anymore, oh no. Not Rosemary, she's old news. If you'd only listened to me you never would have been in this position." 

He looks sad and like if he were a stupid little dog he'd have his tail in between his legs with shame. He should be ashamed. The neighbours must be tearing me apart behind my back. I can't stand that feeling of knowing people are talking about me, and being unable to do anything at all about it. 

"Syd, I'm here," comes a voice from in the doorway. 

Seems as if Her Majesty has arrived and is ready to put on her spectacular girlfriend show for everyone, especially the doctors. She'd better not have heard me just now. I'm really not prepared to have to ward off her critiques today, or wrestle with her fake, forced smile. It's been too long of a week with nothing to do. I'm too tired for it.

"You came so fast," he says, and he's got that stupid smile on his face that he has every time she fucking walks in the room, or says anything at all, or does anything at all. 

He only ever looks like that with her and no one else. No one else ever. It's almost infuriating. I spend so many of my best years devoting myself completely to him, I sacrifice my comfort cleaning every mess, righting every wrong, settling every tab because he couldn't ever be bothered. Putting out grease fires, dragging burnt up paintings out of the fucking backyard while he crumbled into pieces in the living room, sweeping the bits of the god damned windows from the lawn. Leaving a home with a new window, and coming back the next morning after a phone call from a terrified housewife about that new window being smashed overnight. I do this for years upon years... repairing every fucking hole in the wall myself after Alan died. And what does he do? He acts as if none of it ever mattered to him.

"I'm surprised I didn't get pulled over on the way here. I sped the entire way." 

She kisses the top of his head and sits down next to him without even barely a nod to me, so I clear my throat, insisting on acknowledgement. Do you see what I mean? Incredibly low quality woman. Crass, rude, unconcerned with the opinions of others…but my brother loves her, and so I say nothing. I wish he didn't, but for some reason he does, and always has, and will until the day he takes his last breath. And so as much as it pains me to say nothing, I will continue to say nothing...at least to him.

"Perhaps your penchant for haste explains how you forgot to pack Roger's insulin today. We call him Roger, by the way." 

She turns toward me, and I swear I can see rage in her stark brown eyes, but she quickly masks it with a fake friendly and almost mocking Cheshire cat smile. How very dreadful. Every time she does it I want to strangle her. I hate that smile of hers. 

"I apologise, I thought I had mentioned on the phone that I had packed it. Because I did. You know, pack it."

Ugh. The quintessential ugly American. Speaking in such halting. and brazen. sentences, it's terribly impolite and unattractive. Americans are so horribly vulgar and boorish, and I've heard Ms. Wells speaking on the telephone with her friends and she certainly uses the 'f' word just as much as a nasty British bloke like Roger Waters. Like I said, it's very unladylike to speak that way, and I don't approve of or appreciate it in my presence.

"She did, Rosie. I saw her pack it. I must have misplaced it. I'm sorry, Maisie." 

"Why are you apologising to me, silly?," she asks. 

He smiles another grateful smile at her. She didn't even do anything. So infuriating. All she has to do is say one small thing like that, and he'll do whatever she says. I never had a man react that way to me, not ever. I suppose I'm not vulgar and indulgent enough, do you think? If that's what drives men crazy like she does I want nothing to do with it. I'll happily remain sexless and loveless if it means maintaining my dignity and manners. Still, though, it has been awhile, and nobody really notices anymore…not that they ever really did, anyway.

"Because I caused you worry and I interrupted your day. I was supposed to just be painting, and I made you worry instead."

"Oh, sweetheart," she says with another smile and a stroke of his cheek, "You don't ever have to apologise to me for things like this, okay? This happened to you, and not me, and I'm happy to come and be here with you. I'm not annoyed."

Good for you, try doing this for 20 years and then tell me you're not annoyed at yet another careless mistake or stupid misunderstanding of a doctor's orders. Two months is a piece of cake. In fact, you may not even get six months, so you get off easier than anyone in this family. But go ahead, think you're doing such a good job. It must feel good for you to swoop in and martyr yourself like this.

"Roger? Do you think you will be able to find your insulin at my house, or do you want me to look for it?"

"What do you think would be best, Maisie?"

He used to ask me those questions before she came back. I can't figure out why it makes me so jealous. I should be happy that this isn't my burden anymore and I'm not the one being scrutinized by all of the old hens and the worried parents on St. Mary's Circle. I didn't think I'd actually miss it. Maybe it's not taking care of him I'll miss. Maybe it's the status of being a caretaker, and of being the one all the curious journalists and authors bother every time they are curious about old "Syd" Barrett. I've become somewhat of a go between for Roger and his swarms of weird fans on the internet, and I've quite enjoyed the cult-like respect that comes with it. 'Maisie' doesn't want to speak to fans, ever. I think that's unfortunate. 

"Well, I just spoke to the doctor and had the prescription refilled, and it's available for us to pick up on the way home, so I don't think we need to worry about it. It's up to you though, baby, not me. What would you like to do?"

"I'd rather just go home with you, Maisie. I'm tired now. Rosie, if you find it I guess you can just save it for when I come over next. I just want to go home and rest for now." 

I hate the way she looks at him, as if she actually has any kind of feelings for him at all and isn't just showering him with pity and false hope at the end of his life. She thinks she's doing a good deed, but I can see right through it. There's no way she actually has any love for my brother at all. You can tell just by the way she calls him by that madman's name that she has no real loving feelings for him at all and she's only taking pity on a sad, old unattractive man who's dying because he begged her to come home and she couldn't bring herself to say no. She thinks she's so clever putting on such a good show for everyone, but I'm not stupid. I know the game. I've been playing the same one. 

They press their noses together and smile at one another again, and for a second I'm convinced she actually must love him because that look in her eyes is so real. I know what she is, though. She's as fake as that perfect shade of silver she dyes her hair. I can't believe the audacity of just going grey like that and then still acting like a teenage girl cavorting around having sex with whomever asks for it. 

"Maisie, can I talk to you for a second? Outside in the hallway." 

Her eyes narrow on me like she's looking upon something vile, something disgusting. I feel she always looks at me this way, and my only thought is that the greedy little slapper is just plotting 50 different ways to get me and my son out of the way so she can get her nasty, diseased little hands on my money. I worked too hard for too long for that, you little twat. Nothing is going to come between me and that money. Nothing, not even you, and you are the only foe I fear contending with. 

"Of course, Rose. Let's step out." 

She follows me out into the hallway and now I have her on her own, and she can't flatter my poor brother with her used up charms. Look at her clothing, it's hardly befitting of a woman of such an age. She should be dressing much more modest than this. I'm younger than she, and my wardrobe is far more age appropriate than hers is. And the long hair? Please. It would be beautiful on a young woman, but on an old woman like herself it just looks sad. She tries, though, I suppose. She tries a lot harder than me, but I have no one to look good for. If I did, perhaps I also would fuss over myself more. That shirt is much too tight on her body, and yes, she is in wonderful shape and I think any woman with a body like hers would want to show it off, but she's about to be a married woman. She should take more pride in her modesty than this.

"May, I know we haven't really discussed this much, but I really think you ought to call my brother by his real name now. That name reminds him so much of his past, and it's very painful for him." 

"With all due respect, Syd and I discussed this already, and he is happy for only me and Roger Waters to use that name for him, but he doesn't like it from anyone else. Don't worry, I already thought of that." 

"I personally really don't like it, though. I think it's doing him a disservice. I worry it might trigger some...behaviours...and I'm not in the house to protect either of you, potentially. You remember what happened last time."

Her reaction is exactly what I wanted it to be: she looks absolutely terrified and like I've completely knocked her off that stupid little pedestal my brother puts her on (undeserving as she is of being on it). I can even see her shaking a little! Did I make you think of how it felt to be locked in a closet, you poor little muppet? Are you remembering exactly how horrified you were, how alone and how hopeless you were? I hope you remember, and it bothers you all day and night. I hope that you can't sleep, you old, used up, sly, manipulative little slag.

"If that were...if that were something that might have been an issue, I'm sure that it would have happened already. Give your brother some credit. He's had a lot of treatment and he's on the perfect medication for him, which most people aren't lucky enough to be able to say. I'm... I'm not worried. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back in and sit with my fiance. He's who I came here to be with, not you, I'm sorry. I would love to indulge you in your very well qualified thoughts about Syd's name and my trauma that no one asked you for, but will the doctor be coming around soon? I need to talk to them to make sure there's no special instructions they have for us."

She walks away, and if she's at all shaken by me I can't tell, but I hope for certain that she is. It would serve her right to be shaken up and unable to truly look at Roger the same way for the rest of the evening... always wondering in the back of her mind, although she can't bear to distrust him, if he'll shut her away another time. 

She made me look so terrible and lacking in any authority or respectability in front of my brother: completely humiliated and disrespected me. I cannot abide that, of course. From now on, as long as she is here and she undercuts my authority in front of my brother, I'm going to make it my mission to send her into a spiral. Whether it's a quick drop of a reference to her ordeal, or a discussion about Roger and his behaviours, or whatever else I can think of, I'm aiming to throw her into a spiral and ruin her so she can't manage to care for my brother anymore and has to leave. To go home and check herself into a rich lady convalescent place like she did when she left David Gilmour, and get proper therapy and medication, and can live a normal life with a 'career' and a string of men you throw away like trash because nothing but rock stars can truly satisfy you. Everything my poor brother never got to have you have had thrust upon you like you deserved them. Every advantage in life, and you still can't be satisfied by anyone who isn't famous. What a sad life. You can travel all over the world, and have respect from others, but you can never truly be loved by anyone but two people. 

What a spoiled, entitled, attention craving princess. To go through life the way you have and to still complain that you're unhappy. What nerve. You don't know what years of suffering is like with all that money you have.

Oh, well.

This way that's one more obstacle I don't have to deal with. I have to do this before that blasted wedding next month, too. 

What must be done must be done, after all. What a terrible pity it all had to come to this. I wonder what it would have been like to ever have a sister-in-law whose company I enjoyed. I will never know.


	21. David - St. Tropez, 1969 - The Boardwalk/Pierre's Cafe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Maisie go on their date...but is it a date?

_There was no feeling in the world quite like the one I felt when I found that note on my bedside table from her. I mean, my heart skipped a beat. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I didn't even do anything and she asked me out. I was a little worried there when Roger hugged her like that. But... ha. She asked me out._

_And when you consider that I had only just almost lost her it becomes even more of a miracle. When Amelia screamed like that and I saw Maisie was nowhere to be seen I think my stomach dropped out of me. It was like a two ton weight in my guts. I tried to run in for her, but somehow fucking Roger beat me to it. How'd he do that, anyway, and why? What a bloody show off he is. And for what? Does he really think it counts to fuck with a girl's head? Like she's just gonna love you if - not worth it. Roger's not worth it. Not when we're together here and she looks like that, and I feel like this. Not when the waves are rolling in and out, and their tranquil sound is rushing in and then flying away from us, and the wind's blowing all our hair every which way so we both look like mermaids with our hair gently floating in the waves._

_"Did you hear that," she asks, looking around her._

_She looks nervous. I'll admit I think I did hear something, but I'm not worried about it, really. Could've been some sort of an animal. I'm on too much of an emotional high to really worry about it._

_"I don't think so."_

_Yeah, it's a lie, but I really don't think there was anything to worry about, and I want to just go on enjoying this perfect moment with her._

_"Good. So, uh...haha. I guess I didn't think too much about what we were going to actually do, and now I feel all kinds of awkward and not really sure…"_

_That's so cute. I just wanna squeeze her right here, and right now. I think maybe she likes me? It seems like it could be pretty obvious as of right now, but I'm so scared to doom it before it even gets off the ground that I'm not even going to entertain it as a possibility. I am too dead set on completely enjoying this and worrying about nothing._

_"Well, we're on a boardwalk. We could just walk."_

_"Yeah, I guess we could. I didn't even think of that."_

_She laughs again: a small, embarrassed giggle. I laugh too because I was afraid the way I responded sounded nasty when I didn't mean it to, but she doesn't seem to think that way. Maybe my tone of voice was a little harsh, what do you think? I don't want to do or say anything to drive her off, but luckily I haven't had a problem with that. Luckily I seem to be able to either keep my cool in front of Maisie, or I just don't say anything, which seems to work just as well in my favour._

_"Shall we?" In a rare show of bravery I offer Maisie my arm to take while we walk. She's so cute. I love the little flower in her hair, and so I stop for one second to reach out to touch it again. "I can't let it go, how pretty you look with just one small thing like this in your hair."_

_She giggles again, and she lets me play with it, blushing as I reach over and finger it, and then let my hand drop into her actual hair. Her eyes go wide as I somehow find my confidence and push one lock of hair behind her ear. I don't know how I managed that one. A few months ago I couldn't say two words to Maisie. Things are different now, though. We live together now, and we know one another intimately. We usually sleep together, for fuck's sake. It's been difficult for both of us on this trip not being able to sleep together. Of course, I haven't told her just how hard it's been for me to sleep without her. Why would I tell her that so soon? Things are so comfortable now._

_"Thanks. I was kind of channeling Cora to give me fashion advice."_

_"You didn't need to do that. But this look is really pretty, so if you were channeling Cora, I guess thanks, Cora."_

_The wind picks up as we laugh and start walking again until it starts to feel like we have to walk against it, and she starts shivering._

_"This wind is terrible!" She laughs as she yells into the wind. "Stop!!! You're messing up my hair!"_

_I sorry my arms wide like a rock star and walk into the wind roaring: "You're messing up my hair too, you fucking arsehole. Get the fuck out of here!" We are both walking against the wind that's ever picking up speed, laughing like hyenas while it sends all our hair in every direction. She pulls long strands of curls out of her face, and then wraps her arms around herself. Who could've anticipated that it would get so chilly in the summer? She's rubbing her hands up and down her arms, trying to warm herself. I'm pretty cold too, now that I'm thinking about it. I've only got on a short sleeved collared shirt, so I wasn't prepared for cold either. We should probably get outta here, but she stopped running. So I stop running, too, and I walk back toward her, and we stand across from each other: it's like we both know what we want, but neither of us know exactly how to get it for ourselves. We are so used to these moments by now, but this is different from all those mornings across the breakfast table, staring at one another and blushing while she pours more milk in her coffee and I drink more plain milk than I'm proud to admit. This seems like a new level of seriousness._

_"It's so cold. Too cold for August. It was gorgeous today, too."_

_Somehow, gathering my courage, I walk right in front of her and I reach out both arms, and I sort of just rub her arms a little. Her skin is so smooth, it's almost without any blemishes. She feels flawless. Her skin's like warm porcelain: so pale, and smooth, but always the perfect temperature. Even if she feels cold, she doesn't often feel cold to the touch. When I touch her skin she looks up at me, and her earthy eyes glimmer in the light of the setting sun, her expression confused and conflicted. We're lost in staring into one another's eyes now, and I pull her a little closer, but I make sure I leave enough distance for it to not be too intimate. I'm scared to hold her as tightly as I'd really like to, because I fear I simply haven't given her enough time. I'm so terribly afraid to rush her along when she isn't ready. I'm afraid of her seeing me as the type of bloke to take advantage, and I'm not. I'm not the type of man who's going to use her vulnerability to my advantage and fuck with her head. If she and I are gonna be together, it's got to be for real. It's got to be based on something tangible, something we can both see... something that grows between us. I'm not gonna manipulate her into a relationship with me because she's in a bad place. It's such a fine line. I really like Maisie, and I think I want to be with her. I really think I can see us building something real together, but how can I reassure both her and myself that whatever it is that's happening between us isn't me manipulating her?_

_"I'd give you a jacket, but I didn't bring one. So maybe this is the next best thing."_

_We both giggle and then she looks back up at me, and her face twists into a shy smile. I think that this is the longest she's held my gaze. Ever. Really. She always looks away fast... that's one of the reasons I like her so much. She's timid, and I find it so bloody endearing that I want to squeeze the life out of her sometimes, but in a good way._

_"This works," she says with a smile that looks like it's saying so many things, but I don't know where to start to interpret any of them. It looks like she could be flirting with me, but she might be simply being nice to me, or being friendly, or she might be creeped out by me... I'm at a loss because I'm so nervous my head and my heart are both pounding. To make this easier on myself I think for the next few minutes I'm going to assume she's flirting with me because I'd really like to make some kind of a move on her, and if I don't convince myself of that I'll simply never do anything about it._

_I pull her just a little bit closer... I could still hold her tighter, I'm still restraining myself, but I think I'm ready to at least take it a little bit further. She's never fought me, has she? Her arms slide around my upper body, right around my chest, and I can feel as she presses her arms into me the tiniest bit. I can feel her eagerness, and it only helps to excite my own. Maisie might actually like me as more than a best friend, and so I'm gonna keep that in mind from now on._

_"I think so too, but do you wanna go somewhere warmer? Maybe we could go to a cafe or something. It's so windy out that I feel we aren't having the best time we could."_

_"Sure. That sounds good to me. There's one down a few hundred feet, I think. I saw it this afternoon before we went to the beach."_

_"Speaking of this afternoon," I say as we again brave the winds to walk down the boardwalk to the cafe, "please do tell me to hush if I'm being too forward, but what did it feel like to nearly drown?"_

_"You're not being too forward at all. It was so surreal, you know? It was like suffocating and at the same time being filled with fear at the unpredictability of the ocean. I was convinced I was done for. Amelia tried to find me, but I just got pulled out too far. It was probably the second scariest thing I've ever lived through, but…"_

_Knowing exactly what the scariest thing she's ever lived through is, I decide to gloss over that comment. Now isn't the time to talk about all the things that we don't want to think about, because we're here in this moment just like we should be, in the best place for us to be. She leans in close to me as we walk toward the cafe, I guess trying to get to any warmth I have, but maybe she has a little bit of an ulterior motive. Maybe. I guess I'd like to think so._

_"I just want you to know I fully intended on going and getting you out of that water. I was just for some reason beaten to the punch. I gotta admit I was a little shocked to see Roger bolt off like that."_

_To be honest with you, that smile she showed when I mentioned Roger? If it were any other man I think I'd be worried about it. Her face lit up only enough for the most discerning eye to notice , and her cheeks flushed a little bit. I'd worry about it except that Roger Waters will never be competition for Maisie. I guess I can understand the sudden rush of warmth for him, but he's Roger. She already doesn't like him, and he's nearly guaranteed to do something to fuck the entire thing up. He's almost bound to say something nasty to her or bully her somehow to make her angry with him again, and so really I see very little threat here. Still, though, admittedly...it upsets me a little. I tried. I tried to be the one, but he was simply faster._

_"I find it very difficult to admit this, you know, given my feelings about Roger," she says in a voice just above a whisper as we enter the cafe, a beautiful little secret type spot that's low lit and has barely any other customers sitting at its tables, "but I really thought he was so brave for doing that. It kind of made me think differently about him for awhile. Like maybe he's not all bad, you know? I don't know. I could be wrong. Perhaps he had some kind of ulterior motive. But it just seems very brave and I don't understand why he'd do it, but I'm very grateful. I'm grateful to you too for even trying."_

_He did it because he's obsessed with you, and not in a sexy way. I suspect he's obsessed with you in a really creepy and predatory way. I'm not gonna tell you that, though. Not tonight. I'm not saying anything to upset you tonight._

_"Sometimes he definitely surprises people. He's not all bad. He's got his moments."_

_"Yeah. Not many of 'em, but he does have 'em."_

_"Isn't that the truth?"_

_We sit down at a small table and a waiter approaches. Getting her coffee order, I tell the waiter in French exactly what we both want. I don't think she knew I could speak it because she's looking at me now with a big smile, a surprised one._

_"You speak French?" She asks as the waiter walks off._

_"Enough. It's hard not to pick up other languages when you live in Europe. We travel to France a lot since it's not very far. I know some German too, but even less German than French."_

_"I'm just a dumb American. I don't know any other languages. No one really speaks any other ones over in Massachusetts where I'm from. It's a bunch of old WASPy types. I think my friend Gloria and I are the only Jews that went to my old school."_

_"You're Jewish? But your last name is Wells."_

_"My mother is Jewish, so I'm Jewish. My dad is a full blown WASP, complete with not ever talking about his feelings and having a secret male lover."_

_"Now that's something I don't hear every day, a gay lover. Interesting. And you found that out?"_

_"I caught them together when my mother went on vacation with her friends once. Caught them in the library. I thought it was hilarious. Dad told me he was his accountant, haha!"_

_"I'm pretty sure Roger and Syd had something going on at some point, too. In fact we all are."_

_That's not really something I planned on talking about with her, but since she mentioned her gay dad I thought...I dunno what I thought. I guess she really didn't need to know that._

_"Oh, come on. Roger's straight as an arrow. I know he cares, or cared, about Syd, but surely it's not like that."_

_She doesn't know, I guess because she wasn't here: they spent so much time together without us. Roger stayed at Syd's house all the time. They were always stupid around each other like they both had crushes on one another. It was obvious to everyone, but they didn't think so. They thought they were being clever and inconspicuous. They weren't. We all saw the way they smiled at each other, and the way they'd leave separately, one right after the other. At some point Roger inevitably ruined it, but Syd forgave him, I think._

_"I don't know. Sure seemed that way to us. Anyway…"_

_I lean over and rest my head in my hands, and I smile at her. She looks really thrown off guard. Her eyes look suspicious, but playful, like she's interested but afraid of what happens if she shows me. Luckily for her, or unluckily for us, perhaps... I'm worried about the same thing. I'm so afraid that I'm imagining her interest, and that if I act on anything the way I really want to it will only crush any chance I could have eventually had. Like if I wait until the right time everything will be spectacular, and it'll work out how I think we both want, but if any timing is off it could completely ruin any chance for us._

_"You're funny."_

_"Oh, am I?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"Why am I funny?"_

_I play at being offended, over-acting gestures of indignant, embarrassed anger by placing my hand on my chest. She laughs harder at me, and I love the sound her laugh makes. It's like a lilting girlish giggle with some posh "aha-ha"s sprinkled at the end._

_"You just are, David. But I like it."_

_"Well in that case I'm glad I'm funny."_

_"Me too."_

_She leans her chin on her hands, too, and stares into my eyes as the waiter places our coffee (well, latte for her) in front of us. Her whole face spreads out in a smile, and I think she's a little embarrassed by it so she doesn't usually smile like that for long without covering her mouth. There she goes. But I'm feeling pretty brave, so I playfully swat her hand away from her mouth._

_"Uh uh. You don't get to hide that from me. I waited awhile for that."_

_"You're bad," she says with a coquettishness that I think makes it clearer to me that there's more than friendship here._

_"Oh, first I'm funny, and now I'm bad. I see how it is, Miss Wells. I see."_

_"You are bad, though. That was bad."_

_"You don't seem unhappy."_

_"I didn't say I was unhappy ... I just said you were bad."_

_"So you like it when I'm bad. I see."_

_It goes on for another minute or so, the two of us trading banter like this while we sip our coffee, and at one point she laughs so hard she chokes on hers. Her hair is windswept and wild, it's a far cry from the way she had it before, all perfectly draping over her shoulders and down her back. Mine must look messy too. We're staring at one another again now, and I watch as she reaches for her mug and wraps both hands around it. She brings it to her lips, and I watch her eyes peering into mine as she takes a sip. I do the same, and I make sure she can tell that I'm also hiding a smile behind my mug. She reaches a hand down to the table and with a fork pushes the piece of cake she ordered around on her plate. I know her by now: she wants to eat, but she's self conscious._

_I pick the fork up, scoop some cake onto it and bring it to her lips. She laughs again as I press it against her lips, teasing her, tempting her. It's almost a little sexy, if I may say so without sounding indecent or like I only want one thing._

_"Open up," I say, and she gives me a playfully exasperated smile, playing at being insulted or feeling patronized. But she opens her mouth up anyway, and she can barely keep herself from laughing as I slide the fork into her mouth and she closes her full, pillowy lips around it. I can feel her pull the cake off the fork with her teeth, and then I slowly slide the fork out of her mouth. She swallows her food and then takes the fork from me and breaks some cake off and scoops it onto it._

_"You too," she says with that playful smile and that coquettish tone to her voice._

_"Oh yeah?"_

_"Yeah. If I have to get fat you're getting fat with me."_

_"Deal," I say as I let out a hearty laugh and open my mouth so she can slip the fork full of cake into my mouth. I close my lips and taste the delicious taste of fudge frosting with moist vanilla cake. "I want the icing flower."_

_"Too bad. I want the icing flower. That's why I got this piece. You can't have it."_

_"I think I can."_

_"I have the fork."_

_"Who says I need a fork? I'm a bloke. I'm not too dignified to grab an icing flower with my bare hands."_

_"You wouldn't."_

_"Who else is here to see it?"_

_She looks around, and everyone else has left, and that's when I reach for the red icing rose on the top of her cake slice, but she catches my hand before I can grab it and she scoops up the rose with her fork. She almost pushes it into her mouth, but then stops to consider, and then scrapes some off with her finger._

_"You can have some, fine," she says, and I can tell she means to pass me the fork, but I grab her hand and suck it off of her index finger instead. "I was gonna give you the half on the fork, but okay," she says in the middle of a giggle._

_" I know. Tastes better this way," I whisper with a smile as I hold her finger to my lips and dip it again inside my mouth, licking off the remainder. I hope my eyes look playful as I suck her finger a little. I want her to feel flustered, but comfortable, like she's interested but not really ready to feel as interested as she is. Based on the deep scarlet colour her cheeks have turned, and the narrowing of mischievous, sparkling brown eyes…seems like it's working. I savor the taste of her skin in my mouth mixed perfectly with the sweetness of all the icing._

_"Okay, okay. Give me my hand back. Now you're just doing it on purpose."_

_"Who says I wasn't before?"_

_"Naughty."_

_"You let me do it, though."_

_"I never claimed to be innocent. People just assume I am."_

_"That's 'cause you look it, dear. With the big eyes and all the cute clothes. But I know the truth."_

_"You do?"_

_Now it's she who feigns offense and acts as if she's taken aback and insulted by me. I laugh._

_"Yeah, I do, but I promise I won't blow your cover."_

_"What's the truth, then?"_

_"The truth…" I whisper as I lean in closer to her and stick my tongue out, "is that you're actually some kind of sleep demon who beats the shit out of me in bed."_

_She reaches out and swats at my arm, and her eyes widen. For a second she looks angry, but then she bursts out laughing. Now we're both laughing again, and I think I'd die just to preserve this moment. Our laughter is so pure and so raw that I can tell the wait staff are staring at us, a skinny British longhair and a tiny little American girl completely lost in one another. I don't mind that they're staring. I'd stare at us too._

_"Did you want to get out of here?"_

_I reach out to brush some latte foam off her lips, and she catches my finger in her mouth, doing exactly what I did to her._

_Is she trying to tell me something? Is she trying to initiate sex, or... can't be. I won't do it. That'll definitely mess everything up. But damn, I'd love to. I'd give anything._

_"Now who's naughty?"_

_"Not me," she murmurs as she moves her mouth away from my finger, making sure to let my finger drift slowly over her lips as I pull it away. What a tease._

_"Yeah, let's go home. We can hang out in the living room and smoke, or something. Or if Roger's in there I guess...we could...I don't know. Hang out in the living room still…"_

_"Yeah, just the living room," she says with a nervous laugh, but I think she is only trying to do what I'm trying to do and slow it down so we don't rush into sex… because I'm so hard for her right now. If both of us were ready I'd march us both into her bedroom right now and throw her down and ravage her. Wow, I'm so excited just thinking about it, so I gotta get myself under control. I pay the waiter for our food and drinks and we walk back to the cabin, an awkward but comfortable silence hanging between us._


	22. Maisie - Cambridge, March 2006 - The Hospital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie does what she came to do...sit with her fiance and comfort him after his accident. In the hallway she discovers two nurses talking badly about him and handles it like a good wife should.

What a shock, honestly. I know I packed Syd's insulin this morning. I packed it in the place I always pack it: in the inside pocket on his messenger bag. I know I packed it, and he knows it too. You heard him. He saw me pack that insulin, so what happened to it? I really resent Rosemary's tone. I'd never put her brother in a position to have to go without his insulin. Her brother? My fiance. I would never put my future husband in a position to be without his insulin. For Christ's sake, I adore him. Syd is the light of my life. I want him here for as long as possible and in as little pain as possible. 

I don't know what happened to that insulin to make sure it was lost, but I mean... sometimes Syd is a little absent minded. It's probably nothing. He probably took it out of the bag and put it down somewhere, and then forgot where he put it down. He does things like that sometimes. Syd gets very lost in his own head sometimes, and so forgetting where he put things down isn't exactly the rarest occurrence in our home. For a second there, though, she really did have me doubting my own memory of packing it in his bag. In fact, I doubted myself the entire drive here. I kept thinking...what if I actually forgot to pack it? I wouldn't be so negligent. Couldn't be. Could it? And just on and on and on the entire ride. And then he backed me up, and I realized I'd been right the entire time. Why would Rosemary assume that I'd neglected to pack it?

Doesn't matter, I guess, although we'll talk more about Rosemary in a bit. Because of her meddling and having to turn the attention onto herself I've barely gotten to be with my baby. He looks so pale and tired.. it's awful. I guess we're waiting on the doctor, which is usually the case in an emergency room I think. Or at least that's been my experience.

Syd looks up at me as I return to sit right next to the head of his bed, so close I could lean over and kiss him. And yeah, now I'm wishing I didn't promise myself to save a kiss for the wedding because all I wanna do is cover him with kisses. If I had been there this would never have happened. I wouldn't have let him stand outside in the cold for hours without taking his insulin. What's wrong with her, anyway? Is she stupid? I would have called the pharmacy. My god, that's... that's so stupid.

"Hey, my poor baby," I whisper to Syd as I kiss the top of his head, "what happened? Did you take your insulin out of your bag and forget where you put it?"

"Well, I suppose I must have, because I know for certain that you packed it. I saw you stuff it in the pocket it's always in when I was gathering my paints. So I suppose I must have taken it out and put it down somewhere. Oh, I feel so guilty and so stupid, Maisie, and it's so very overwhelming for me. I want to go home with you now. Being here isn't making me feel better, and Rosie is so cross with me."

Rosemary is cross with him, huh? Well, I'll tell you exactly what I think about that, but there's no way in hell I'll ever say that to him. 

"Why would you say a thing like that? That you feel guilty and stupid? You made a mistake, and I'm sure Rosemary's not cross with you. I'm sure she's just stressed. I'm sure you gave her quite a scare. You sure scared me." 

Syd takes my hand and pulls it to his face, and he kisses my palm and his eyes brighten.

"I made you worry. And you came here."

"You silly," I whisper in his ear as I let my hand travel across his cheek and lips, "there was never a second where I even thought there was somewhere I'd rather be. Not that I'm happy we're here, but I'm happy to be wherever you are, whenever you need me."

"I feel so much better now that you came. I was so very scared before. I always feel as if these staff are staring at me. But now that my Maisie is here I'm not scared that they'll stare at me." 

I stroke his cheek and get lost in the sincere smile in his entire face, the one I always have trouble resisting. The smile that if I could paint, it would be the only thing I'd ever paint. 

"We're gonna get out of here soon, okay. Have you seen anyone yet?"

"Not yet. They've kept me waiting. I got some tests done, and now I'm just waiting on those. I want to go home now, Maisie." 

"I know, baby," I whisper to him as I stare into his eyes, "and we will. When we get home if you'd like we can watch Peter Pan again." 

"Yes, please. And can we have tea?"

"Of course we can." 

We join hands and I don't move an inch from where I am, which is right next to him. Of course we can go home and watch Peter Pan, and have tea. We can do whatever he wants after the day he's had. He reaches out to touch my hair, just like he did in Nick's basement that day so long ago. 

"Do you remember that day in Nick's basement?"

Sometimes I swear these things aren't coincidences: Syd does this type of thing too often for it to just be random. He reads my mind, or does something I was about to do, or something in that vein, but it just happens way too often. I think they're right when they say Syd has some kind of precognitive ability. He's so empathic, too. My goodness how I adore him. He's my perfect ray of beautiful, warm sunshine that spills over both our lives and brightens up everything around and with us. My lovely, radiant sun...my shining crazy diamond.

"I've never forgotten that day in Nick's basement."

"Never?" Syd's eyes light up like stars in the night sky, sparkling and glittering as he smiles and stares straight into my eyes...his smile makes me feel warm and alive. I feel so...so much like I'm flying away and nothing can bring me down to Earth, but I don't care. I don't want to come back down. Now that I've finally found Syd wherever he went into the sky, the ground seems boring and undesirable.

"Never." 

It's true, too. I don't know if I ever stopped caring for Syd. I've often thought fondly of him as he was, or wondered how he was doing. Sometimes to my detriment, of course. A lot of times to my detriment.

"I never stopped loving that day. I feel so much better now that you're here, Wendy. Things don't hurt as much, and I'm not so tired. I'm so happy you came. "

Now I notice Rosemary's looked over at us. She had been thumbing through an ugly old lady catalogue with those stupid dog sweaters she wears. And I wear leggings, but hers are big and baggy and they sit on her skinny body like they're hanging on a hanger. All those ladies in those magazines, far too beautiful and young to represent the dowdy middle aged lady with the fake ginger hair behind a headband, falling around her ears like a little girl's haircut, are smiling while wearing clothes I know they think are ridiculous. Too much pink blush on her cheeks (blush? She didn't go anywhere today, except here, but she has makeup on? She's so weird. And creepy.) She looks so jealous and angry. Who do you think you are? What, you're supposed to get the same treatment as me? It's fucked up. Syd and I are getting married. She's his sister. What the fuck? You'd think she'd be happy to see her brother happy, but she's clearly turning the entire situation onto herself, as always. 

"I was never going to be anywhere else, baby. I'm going to go bother them to get the doctor. You need to come home." 

Syd pulls me toward him as I stand up to leave, and he pulls my face in close and leans his forehead against mine.

"Will you sit with me? When we get home. I just need you. It's been such a hard day." 

"Yes, of course, just as soon as we have dinner. You need to eat. But then we can sit together or lay together for as long as you want."

"I love you, my Maisie. You're the best."

I just want to tell him I love him too, but he asked me not to. I want it to be special. The wedding night it is.

I squeeze Syd's hand and walk out to the nursing station. The nurses on duty are all sitting in a circle chattering to each other, and I overhear 'the sick bloke who used to wander around', and I really have to stop and breathe before I throttle the little twat. Who does she think he is? He's a human being: a beloved human being in fact, by so many people. And this little girl who's probably just starting out could have the pleasure of knowing him, but won't allow herself because all she sees is the 'town lunatic'.

"Excuse me," I blurt out with a clearing of my throat, "but my friend hasn't seen the doctor, and he's been here for quite awhile. You really need to get someone in here so I can take him home. This place is really stressful for him, but it seems as if you've already inferred that it was probably the case." 

The poor young lady looks really mortified, and I gotta say I'm really kind of happy about it because that remark, and probably the rest of what she was saying, was so dehumanizing that I'm glad I had the restraint to not throttle her. She should really be more sensitive to her patients and not talk loudly about them when they're within earshot almost, if at all. So unprofessional.

"Of...of course, ma'am. I'm sorry. I'll get right on it, and the doctor will be right with you. We wouldn't want your friend to get stressed." 

"No, I certainly wouldn't. Perhaps instead of sitting here gossiping about your patients you could be making yourself useful."

I'm not normally the type to get nasty with workers of any type. I understand that nurses, retail and service workers have difficult and stressful jobs. In fact, they have some of the lowest paying and least appreciated jobs, and so I really do go out of my way to be kind and have patience with them. I don't usually blame them for sitting down when they have nothing going on either...there's truly no harm in it, and I don't want to give off the impression that it's better to pretend to be busy than to rest when you have nothing to do. A lot of people my age are rude to workers, but I really try not to be. I think the only reason I am being this way with her is that I'm so pissed off to hear her talk about Syd like that.

"Yes, ma'am, of course. The doctor will be right with you."

That's fine, but I don't think I'm done. I lean over the counter and look the little blonde nurse in the eye. Right in the eye so she knows I mean business.

"Just so you know, sweetheart, that sick bloke who used to wander is one of the most wonderful people you could ever hope to meet." 

Now I turn and walk back to Syd's room, satisfied that I said something without being too nasty. What I wanted to do was scream in her face, but I think I restrained myself pretty well. I walk back into the room only to hear Rosemary arguing with Syd about his medicines as if she has any idea what's going on with them anymore. Her tone is stern and scolding, and there's no warmth or caring in it at all...she just sounds mean. I clear my throat again and watch them both turn their heads toward the doorway when I am. Syd's face brightens in a lovely, sweet smile, but Rosemary looks positively stony and mercurial. I wonder why she's so jealous of me, anyway. 

"Maisie's back," Syd says as he cranes his neck around his sister to look at me. Ugh, I can't deal with Rosemary's bright pink blush and baby blue eyeshadow. Oh, and the black eyeliner under her fucking eyes...kill me, honestly. So terrible. Uncalled for, really. Nobody's worn that look since the 80s.

"We can both see that," she says, spitting venom at him. Sometimes I want to get my fiance away from this woman as quickly as possible. I don't care if she's his sister: it's clear to me that something about her is off. If I were less careful of a person I'd suspect abuse. 

"They're gonna send the doctor for you, baby. I gave the nurse a bit of a hard time, but she got up to go find a doctor so I guess it was worth it."

"I can't wait to go home. This place is so sad."

"And I can't wait to bring you home. This environment and all the people here are just no good for your mood." 

I hope it's obvious to Rosemary, but not Syd, that she's included in my list of people who are bad for him. I'll never forget the way I just heard her scolding him about how stupid he is for misplacing his medication. In fact, I've barely said a thing to her beyond her scolding me for calling Syd by the name he's always had to me that he has said he doesn't mind me using. I've barely said a word to her, she deserves it, and as soon as we can get out of here we will. 

To make a long story short, the doctor came in about 10 minutes later with Syd's test results, which indicated his blood sugar was stable and I could take him home. Rosemary volunteered to come with us and make dinner and tea, but I refused. She doesn't need to be there, we don't need help. I told her to go home and relax, but what I meant was for her to go home and wash her face and stop making an ass out of herself, and also to stay the fuck away from my love if she can't be nice to him. Syd gets changed and I bring him home. The car ride is peaceful: it's not like the other doctors' visits. No bad news this time. I squeeze his hand the entire drive home: my baby, my love, my light. I'd trade anything just to get a few years with him.


	23. Maisie - St. Tropez, 1969 - The Cabin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and David come home to quite a scene, and they divide their cleanup duties evenly. However, Maisie gets stuck with the more distressing job.

_What a night!_

_We're walking back to the cabin after this really nice evening we've just had. I have to say I'm just in such a good place right now! Everything just went so right. We walked together, but it got so windy, and the way he hugged me? I guess I felt weightless. Safe. It felt right, you know? So, so stupidly and unrealistically right. I mean like…_

_If I didn't know David was so steady I'd worry... because this is how I felt with Syd. I guess it does scare me a little. That's why I'm so determined to not rush this. I mean, I wanna rush it! My body wants me to rush it for sure, but you probably guessed that based on the stunt with the finger. Still though, he did it to me first. But David's different than Syd in other ways, too, it's not just that he's healthier. He's a lot more stable in general. He's... comforting. He's secure. He's strong. I don't have to take care of him. Maybe I just didn't have it in me to care for Syd... maybe David and I could be better for one another. I don't know. Am I even ready to move on? Thank god we both decided we were gonna stick to the living room, but how am I gonna avoid trying to get close to him? I think both of us would really like to maybe sit a little closer together, turn the lights down a little...you know. Maybe not sex tonight, but... something a little more than this. Something a little more than just hanging out in the living room together like friends. I want to maybe...I don't know. Hah. I guess I'm not entirely sure what I want._

_"I really hope Roger's in bed," David says as he moves to open the door to the cabin. It's locked, so I pull my key out and in it. David smiles at me as he reveals he was also digging for his keys, and had also just found them. "I guess everybody beats me to the punch today, huh?"_

_"Guess so," I say as I stick out my tongue and push the door open. The room is totally dark except for the moon spilling in through the window. The liquor cabinet's open, and there's some bottles missing..I was gonna go find our mary jane and pack a bowl, but I am more than certain that I can smell the distinctive sour and noxious smell of vomit. Vodka flavored vomit, mixed with bile, like whoever it belongs to threw up so much that they started losing stomach acid. It's horrendous. I can see that there's a heap of humanity on the floor by the liquor cabinet there, barely moving. "David, can you turn the light on?"_

_"Yeah, definitely. I smell it, too."_

_He switches the light on as I approach the putrid heap on the floor by the liquor cabinet, and as the room brightens my suspicions are confirmed: it's Roger. His hair is sprawled all over his face with his mouth hanging open. He looks like a mess with his skin green and clammy, and he's covered, from his face to his chest and stomach, in tons of crusted vomit. I don't remember seeing him eat enough to warrant this much vomit._

_"Oh, gosh. It's Roger. What do you think happened here?"_

_"Who knows. Could be anything."_

_He sounds so ... unaffected by it, and I'm not sure why, but it sort of bothers me. If I found a friend of mine lying in a heap of her own vomit passed out I'd be concerned. I'd help. I wouldn't just shrug it off and go about my business, especially when the whole house stunk of vomit like this._

_"What should we do for him?"_

_"I guess let him be. He'll be fine by morning, and he'll shower and pass out in his bed until it's time for rehearsal. Like he always does when this happens."_

_"So he does this a lot?"_

_"It's not the first time."_

_"And you just leave him."_

_"Yeah. It's not my business, is it?"_

_"Well, I don't want to sleep in a house that smells like this. Do you?"_

_"I suppose not. You're right."_

_"If you clean him up I'll clean the rug and everything."_

_"Are you crazy? I'm not cleaning him up. If you want him cleaned up you're gonna have to do that. I'm sorry. He would ask me to leave him alone at best if I tried to do that, and kick my arse at worst. This is just what we've nearly always done."_

_"So in other words, going to sleep in a room that smells like this doesn't bother you?"_

_"I guess not," David admits with a shrug and a snicker, "because Roger and I always share rooms, and he often does this. Or I'll find girls passed out with him in his bed. I've sort of just accepted that Roger is a mess and learned to work around it."_

_I heave a heavy sigh because now I'm in the most awkward position I could possibly be in. I'm really sensitive to smell and I will not be able to sleep tonight with this nasty stench floating around in here. Yes, I'll smell it in my room, even if I close the door. This means I'm gonna have to clean Roger up, which means being a lot closer to him and nicer to him than I'd like, and possibly might involve nakedness (which I'm so not prepared for)._

_"Fine. I owe him a favor, anyway."_

_I really do, though. He saved my life. I could have died if he didn't jump in to get me like that, and so he deserves enough of my kindness to help him get cleaned up and into bed. I cannot fathom just leaving somebody to soak in their own puke. Men are so savage sometimes. Savage meaning primitive and gross. At least David isn't a completely incompetent adult in terms of housekeeping like Roger and especially like Syd, so I trust he'll be able to clean up the floor like the mostly competent adult he is. That's another thing I really, really like about David, that he's so good around the house…add that to the list of things I like about David._

_Anyway… I guess there's time to think about that later. This is not what I wanted to do tonight, not by far, but at least now David and I don't have that pressure to have sex. Probably by the time I finish helping Roger get cleaned up and he gets the house all re-situated we'll both be too tired to do anything, and at least we're safe for one more day. We're here for a few more days, though, and it's gonna be really electric, and so sexy tomorrow night watching him play guitar. It always is. Ah. Yeah... not the time._

_When I walk over next to Roger and get ready to kneel down next to him I have to literally swallow my entire sense of smell in order to not vomit myself. I really enjoyed that cake, and I don't intend to waste it. Plus...no one wants to throw up. Ever. I reach out and touch his shoulder, and I shake him. I try not to be rough; I don't want to startle him, but I do want to rouse him and wake him up enough that he can get to the bathroom on his own or with only a little help. If I've got to bring him the whole way, or drag him, I dunno how I'm gonna get this done. So let's hope he wakes up._

_"Hey... Roger. Hey. Come on, wake up," I say over and over again while I gently shove him. Eventually I hear him groan and sort of whimper...I don't think he really knows what's going on. He sounds like he's in a lot of pain. I can only imagine...this is why I barely ever drink. Like, exactly this. It's miserable to be drunk and then to have to wake up after being drunk...yuck. I don't envy Roger. Whatever good time he may have had beforehand doesn't make this worth it for one second._

_Roger whimpers again and his body seizes..it's like he's going to throw up again, oh Jesus Christ. I pull him up to sit: he's like dead weight in my arms, and so difficult to move, but finally we get him into a seated position somehow between the two of us. I can tell he's trying to move, but he's so sick and weak that he can't do it on his own, and definitely needs my help. He's heaving. I can tell more puke is coming, so I move back, but before I can get far away enough just a little bit hits me. Ugh, so gross. So, so gross. Thank god it's not a lot! I'm definitely going to have to shower after I get him to bed, but that's fine._

_In his stupor Roger reaches out and grabs my face, like he's trying to tell who I am, like he maybe is having some trouble seeing. His hands explore my cheeks, my nose and my jaw, and it dawns on him that it's me._

_"Maisie," he can barely croak as his body heaves one more time, "Maisie?"_

_"Yeah, it's me. Let's get you to the bathroom. It seems like you have more to come out, and I am sorry to violate your dignity and sense of privacy, but I will not let you go to bed like this, or stay passed out in your fluids. So I'm gonna help you get cleaned up and into bed, okay?"_

_His hands are still on my face when I pull him up to stand. He's wobbly, and I have to pull him back to my side once or twice, but finally we're able to find a way to walk in step enough (albeit slowly) to get him to the bathroom. He hobbles to the toilet and falls down in front of it, but I'm fast enough to stop him from slamming his face into it, and I hold him steady and then hold his hair in a ponytail while he throws up more. His body is heaving so hard, like it's searching for more to expel, but simply can't find anything else except spit and stomach acid. I tighten my grip on his hair as he leans over and tries so hard to throw up because he just won't stop heaving. He seems possessed: minutes go by and his body is still seizing, looking for vomit, and then he starts to sob in despair from not being able to stop. When he's done I rub his back until his sobs stop. He tries to take long breaths, and I use the technique David uses to help me calm down after nightmares. I guide him in his deep, calming breaths until he lets a long exhale escape and seems to have returned to something resembling a normal state._

_"Thank you," he manages to say under his breath, "thank you."_

_"Don't thank me, okay? I owe you one."_

_"Nobody has ever done this for me before."_

_He still sounds really drunk, so I'm not sure how seriously to take him, but it seems like it might be worth it to just disregard most of what he says when he's like this. I'm sure Cora has done this for him, or Syd, or Rick._

_"Well, that's sad. I'm sorry."_

_When he's ready to turn away from the toilet I look him over, and he's just ghastly. He's always been so skinny he's a little sunken in, but tonight his eyes are practically hidden behind black circles, his cheeks are caved in and his skin is a greyish white that makes him look nearly dead. I wonder what happened to him to make him drink like this? Maybe there was a girl here and she left, or something. Maybe he's depressed. I think Roger goes in phases with his moods, and maybe he's just on a downswing. His black shirt is stained with pinkish, chunky puke, and so are the top of his jeans. He looks so sad that if he weren't so gross I'd hug him. Sometimes a simple hug goes a long way, especially for somebody like him who is obviously miserable._

_He stares at me, and I can't really tell what his expression means because he doesn't look angry. He looks sad, I guess. Really sad. Maybe he had a bad phone call with Cora, or maybe he … I don't know. Does it matter in the context of my own life? Not really._

_"This is going to sound really weird and embarrassing to you, but I need you to give me your clothes after the bath I'm running for you is done. I don't really have a problem with it because I mean... it's nothing I haven't seen already, but if you think you can do everything yourself I'll go back and help David -"_

_"Don't go," he moans, "I can barely move I'm so exhausted and achey. Please help me."_

_He's wobbly and shaky still, and he's probably right that he wouldn't be able to make it into the tub himself, so I turn on the water and let it get warm so he can feel soothed by the water and not shocked. Not as hot as I'd have liked it, but I'm not getting in, he is. As the water runs he takes his shirt off, and I take it from him, holding it with two fingers and then taking it out and hanging it over the railing outside. Same with his pants, though I have to help him peel those off, and he whimpers while I do so... probably from embarrassment, but who knows. As far as I'm concerned, this is old news to me, Roger's body, although that doesn't mean under normal circumstances I wouldn't be attracted to it._

_"You're gonna have to …I mean ...l am not bothered by you being naked, but you're gonna have to take off your own underwear, friend."_

_He manages to laugh somehow, and he shakes like an old man as he rolls his underwear down his bony hips and over his v-cut stomach, and I look away just before he exposes himself all the way. The only thing I do is hold his legs still so he doesn't shake too much to take them off, but I'm not looking._

_"Sorry... I'm... I'm really sorry you have to...to, you know, do this. Sorry...about everything. Everything. I'm just … I'm just a bad person, a bad man. I'm a piece of shit, absolutely rubbish . You...you deserved better, and... I'm… I'm sorry."_

_I admittedly have to pull his legs up so he can reach to take off his underwear completely, and this feels just so awkward. So awkward, and for a million reasons: I can't stand him, we're exes, and I'm interested in his friend. I'm single, though... it's not like I'm cheating on David or anything. I'm sure he's… But this isn't even intimate, anyway._

_Okay, so now I'm basically looking down at the ground on the other side of me, ignoring Roger's full nakedness because... that's just too weird. He grasps at my waist, trembling and wobbly still, and I help him step over the rim of the bathtub. We nearly fall over at one point when he wobbles just a bit too much, and I find myself gripping his back and ribs just a little harder to steady both of us. Maybe I squeezed him a little too hard: he feels like he's wilting a little. Looking down and to the side again as he lowers himself into the tub, I take a hold of his arm._

_"Don't worry about it, okay? Just try to sit down all the way and get in the tub. You're fine. I'm not mad at you anymore."_

_I'm not really mad at Roger anymore; I just don't care, really. I go about my life not really thinking about him most of the time. So I'm not lying to him._

_After a few more seconds we get him lowered down so he's sitting in the water. I made it just a little hotter because he's shivering. Maybe it'll help._

_"It's just that…"_

_"Don't worry about it."_

_Finally I can see the clear green of his eyes as he stares into mine, and I ease him down so he's reclining, his chest submerged. I poured some soap in hoping that maybe that'll be enough to get him clean. That's not gonna help with his face or hair though, and they're covered in vomit too._

_"Roger, is it okay with you if I wash your hair and your face? I think it'll be easier if I just do it instead of you since you're so shaky."_

_"Please."_

_"You need to stop drinking like this someday, you know," I can tell I'm scolding him, but somebody has to. Apparently everybody just enables this guy to act like an overgrown college kid. He's almost 30 years old._

_"I'm... I'm so sorry."_

_"Don't apologize to me," I say as I dip a washcloth under the running warm water and squeeze it, "it's not my problem."_

_"I mean…" He closes his eyes as I bring the washcloth to his face and wipe all the crusted vomit off his mouth and cheeks. I get his eyes and ears too, just because I have no idea how far it got, and I'd rather he were completely clean. Now he opens his eyes, and he looks as sad as he did before, but his eyes are a little more alert. "I mean I'm sorry... I'm sorry…"_

_"Just don't-"_

_"No," he says, and he grabs my hand for a second, "I'm sorry I ever…"_

_"Roger…"_

_I coax him to lean his head back and I pour some warm water over his head and down through all his hair. He breathes in and out deeply, like he's releasing a ton of bad feelings and finally able to relax. I squeeze my Castile soap and rosemary oil shampoo mixture into my hands and lather it into his hair. I use a lot because he's got quite a bit stuck in his hair._

_"I'm sorry, Maisie...that I...that I ever let you…"_

_"Really, that's enough." I work my hands through his soapy, sweet smelling hair, and I massage his scalp with my fingers. "This will help if you have a headache."_

_"I do."_

_So I keep massaging his scalp and his temples, too. I just kind of feel bad for him, I guess. I hope that Cora understands I only did this for mine and David's benefit, really…_

_"Really, Roger, if you keep drinking like this you'll end up really hurting yourself."_

_"I'll stop if…if you'll..." I pour more water over his head to get all the soap out, and we need to do it a few times, but eventually it all comes out and rolls down his arms and shoulders and chest. "Maisie, why are you...why are you being kind… to me? I've been so rotten to you."_

_"Relax," I say, and I hope he can tell I'm half teasing, "I'm only doing it to get rid of the smell."_

_"You're…" He looks up at me one more time, and his eyes are intense, almost haunting. "You're so...I…I..." And now he's starting to cry again._

_"Stop it now. Come on."_

_"But…" he places his hand upon mine again, and a tear rolls down his face. I can feel my own face growing hot and my heart starting to pound like Nick pounds his drums, but immediately I push it from my mind. "But I…it kills me every day to...I can't do it anymore. I just want...need..."_

_"I don't know what it is you're trying to say, but let's not worry about it right now."_

_Now that he's clean I leave him for a second to find some clothes for him in his suitcase. David is bent down on the floor, scrubbing away at the stains Roger left in the carpet._

_"Hope he's not being indecent in there," David calls out while I'm rifling through Roger's things._

_I end up with some pajamas and socks for him, but I find his emerald ring in there, too, and I know it brings him a lot of comfort to be able to fidget with it. I stuff it in my bra for the time being so I don't have to risk dropping it. I know he has this one and a red one, but only the green one was in his bag. You know what? I gave this one to him for his birthday. Hm. I don't think he's worn the red one since then._

_"He can barely even talk or move. I don't think he has the capacity to be indecent. How are you doing cleaning up here?"_

_"Eh. It's a lot of spew, and it's pretty well ground into the rug, so I'm getting there, but it'll probably be done by the time you're finished with that."_

_"About sleeping arrangements…" His eyes perk up a little, that devil._

_"What about them?"_

_"I think I'm gonna give Roger my room because he needs the quiet and probably wants to be alone."_

_"Good idea. Well, I guess you can take his bed…"_

_"We'll talk about that once I get finished with him."_

_Carrying his pajamas and ring I head back into the bathroom, where Roger is slumped over with his head in his hands. He seems to be shaking: maybe even crying._

_"Roger? Are you okay?"_

_"N-no. I haven't been okay, not since...not since…" His voice is muffled from under his hands. "Oh, god. I've just been... I'm in... so fucking in...in l... it's hell. Damn it."_

_"Roger, stop."_

_"Why do you ask me if I'm okay and then...and then you won't let me...let me say anything? I can't keep it in anymore.. I'm so tired, I'm so...so frantic, so sad. I'm lonely without... even...even with Cora. I'm lonely... I'm even lonely with...with her, and I never...I never...I never felt...damn it. I can't say...I can't. Oh Maisie everything hurts me, it always has. Everything has always damaged and hurt me. I have...no nerve, none at all, not...not even a little bit. I'm a...I'm a...I'm a coward. I'm a fraud. No...no one will ever… Ever love me."_

_"I just...look, this is really hard for me. You weren't good to me. I don't think I want you to keep talking to me about this."_

_"I know, and that's why I want you to know... Maisie, I…I wanted to be … I wanted to be good to you. And I just...I don't want to be lonely anymore. I never felt... lonely... lonely... with...with you."_

_"Stop."_

_"Why? Just let me...I just want..."_

_His eyes are fierce and burning. It's the first time he's looked completely present. I start to tremble, and then I look away. Nope. I have poor self control, but even if I were willing, this is a total turnoff and he's getting nowhere._

_"Because that's over, and there's no reason to talk about it. Now let's get you out of here and into bed."_

_"But...Maisie…"_

_"Nope. Let's go. I shouldn't have to keep telling you."_

_"Why? Why won't you…why can't you be..."_

_I shake him, trying to throttle the persistence out of him. Whatever he wants to say isn't something I'm interested in hearing._

_"Stop! Seriously, Roger, don't say anything else."_

_When I help him stand up he's still crying, but now he gets louder. Ugh. I hand him a blue towel, but he can't summon the strength to wipe it on himself._

_"Fine, okay? I'll do above the neck, but you're on your own for everything else. That has nothing to do with me."_

_He nods, and I reach up, but he sits down on the floor somehow so I can get to his face and hair. I dry them both with a gentleness I never expected to use with Roger, but as I dry his hair and face and neck he starts to calm down again. His breathing slows and he comes back down to earth._

_"Thanks…"_

_"It's okay.*_

_He takes the towel, and I turn my head and hold his body steady as he dries the rest of it. Then we begin the battle of trying to get his pajamas on together, and I pull his ring out of my bra and push it into his ring finger for him. Once that's done I pull him into a standing position again and lead him to my bedroom, my arm around his waist. I walk and half drag him, and he shuffles and shambles along with me._

_"You're going to my room. It's just better for you to be alone tonight."_

_"Oh...okay. But I..."_

_I place one hand over his mouth, and with the other I open the door to my room and lead him to the bed, and when he is able to get in and lie down he stares up at me… his eyes are sad, and they make him seem lonely. I hate that. I hate seeing people look so sad because I have no choice...I have to help them. I kneel down next to him and let him stare into me more, and I stare back. Something about him is off._

_"I'm gonna go, okay?"_

_"Don't..not yet. Please?"_

_"What do you need?"_

_Roger manages a smile, a nervous smile._

_"Just stay."_

_"You don't want to be alone?"_

_"No. Can I...will you..."_

_"What?"_

_"Hold me…"_

_He barely speaks above a whisper. Whatever went wrong went terribly wrong, it seems, and now he needs a friend...and nobody really wants to be his friend. Rick likes him sometimes, and Syd liked him, but not many people like him, and it's a shame because he could be so much more than he is. Nick is ambivalent to Roger as far as I know, or at least is not bothered by most of what he does. Jane doesn't like him, Amelia thinks he's one of the worst types of people, and I don't like him at all even though I pity him. And David? David tries to be friendly, but Roger constantly spurns him and is pretty mean to him which makes no sense to me because Roger asked David into the band._

_My first reaction is disgust and anger that he'd even ask me that. He has some nerve, doesn't he? Still, he did save my life...but haven't I done enough? Wasn't that all enough to repay him? Does he really need this too? Why does it feel like...never mind._

_"I can't do that, but I'll sit next to you."_

_I sit down next to Roger on the bed, and he rests his hand next to mine, maybe trying to hint that he'd like me to give him mine, but I don't. There's only so far I'm willing to go. He's being oddly friendly, even affectionate. I can't figure out whether drink is terrible for him for all the reasons it's actually terrible, or if it's better for him because it makes him nicer, and he apparently apologizes when he's drunk, too. I can tell he's asleep, but he reaches his arm over my thighs and drops it on them. He's probably dreaming about Cora. I don't move him until I can hear that he's in really deep sleep, and then I lightly place his arm down on the bed and tiptoe out of the room._

_"Well, that's over," I say to David, who's also finished his own job, "Finally."_

_"That bad, huh?"_

_"It's not like he was nasty to me at all, he was just really, really fucked up and needed so much help. He threw up on me once, and then continued (luckily) in the toilet until he couldn't even get any stomach acid up anymore."_

_"Threw up on ya, huh?" David steps towards me and inspects the little bit of puke on my dress. "Yeah, he got you. Luckily it's not as bad as it was when I used to attempt to be friends with Roger and help him like this. Guess he's learned better self control."_

_"It wasn't self control. He'd just already thrown up everywhere and didn't have much left. The same thing happened in the bathroom, except he made it to the toilet that time."_

_"You want to take a shower, of course."_

_He teases me for worrying about being clean all the time. If he'd dealt with all the grossness of living with Syd he'd understand._

_"Yeah, but...where should I sleep?"_

_David steps a little closer to me and smiles as he turns his face to the floor and then back up to meet my eyes._

_"You know...with Roger in there… I mean, he won't wake up until around 11 anyway. There's no reason you can't sleep with me."_

_I stop to consider. I feel so fast and easy, but...I hate to sleep without him. Is that how I'm supposed to feel even if there's no sex? Is it too soon to feel this way? I just know that right now nothing sounds better than sleeping (just sleeping) with David._

_"I think I like that idea. So what if he sees us anyway? Nothing ever happens that would…"_

_Then I stop, because I know I'd like something to happen, but I'm dead set against it for now._

_"Exactly..nothing indecent happens between us ever, so he has no room to get...well, I don't know how he would get. He probably won't even care."_

_" Okay, then," I say as I smile and divert my eyes to the ground too because lately I get so shy with David sometimes that I can't maintain eye contact. That's always what happens when I like somebody._

_When I leave to go to the bathroom I turn around for a second and there's David... smiling at me just like I'm smiling at him, and I enjoy every second of my shower, if you know what I mean, so that by the time I'm ready to go to bed I'm not quite so ... excited. I finish with both my hair and my fun, dry myself off and step back into the living room where David's in his pajamas too, and we walk to the room he had been sharing with Roger. We climb into bed, and we both drop off to sleep around the same time, but maybe he fell asleep before me. I don't know. What I do know is that I haven't felt as safe as I do now this entire trip._


	24. Cora - Seven Oaks, Kent - March 2006 - Cafe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora and Maisie reunite at a cafe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I notice I'm not picking up any new kudos. Is there anything I can do to make this better for you?

I'm getting ready to go meet Maisie at a cafe I recommended when we spoke last. She doesn't mind the drive here, and I'd rather not go back to Cambridge for now. Too many painful memories there, I’m afraid. Perhaps one day closer to the wedding, but for now while I have time I’d prefer to stay away. God forbid we go past mine and Roger’s old house. I might not be able to handle it.

Judy's sitting behind me on the bed lounging and reading Forbes Magazine, but then she slips it down, and I notice her looking me over, her bedroom eyes roaming over the backside of me and stopping to rest on the way my bum looks in my skirt. I turn my head and I beam right back at her, and I admire her earthy black soil skin and her galactic black majestic coils of hair. (I told her I hated her wigs after six months into our relationship, and asked her to please consider trying to let her hair be itself, and she agreed). It took a lot for her to grow her hair and let it be itself, but it's so beautiful now, so regal. She's got this big, kinky curly, beautiful afro hairdo: the kind a supermodel has. A gazelle of a girl. That's my Judy. She's a force to be reckoned with and always looks like a queen while doing so.

"So where is it you're going today?", she asks with a curious lilt to her voice, almost sarcastic. Not mean, though, just...her. It's one of my favorite things about her: the teasing, loving tint of condescension in her voice: the 'I love you because you're so crazy'. Always with that warm smile, and her honey brown eyes...her full, pouted lips and her stellar collarbone. Oof, well...I guess that's a bit of a coincidence. Hehe.

"To meet one of my closest friends who I haven't spoken with in forever. Did I ever tell you about Maisie?"

"I don't think so," she murmurs with a question in her ‘before my coffee’ voice. One side of her mouth is upturned in a sly grin, her lips pouted and inviting. 

"Alright, then, I'll just tell you now. Maisie was a girlfriend of David's...you know, David Gilmour from Pink Floyd." 

"Right. The band the douchebag you married was in. You know I hate them, right? Too god damned depressing."

"I only like the last two albums - you know, the ones without him."

"I didn't know that, but okay, if you say so."

"Okay, okay. Well, she was his girlfriend. We got to be very fast friends, you know, as you do when you meet a nice girl. I think I had maybe a bit of a crush on her, but I didn't realise that's what it was because, you know... I'd never guessed I could be a lesbian. Well, to make a long story short, the douchebag I married was in love with her, obsessed, even. She made him batty. No, actually, he made himself batty...I mean bloody insane. Judy, you have no idea. You should have read these diary entries he wrote about her and seen all the things he stole from her. It was unbelievable. That's what really drove the last nail into the coffin: finding out he'd been stalking her behind my back for so many years... completely unbeknownst to her. I haven't spoken to her since then." 

"I'm sorry, what? You never told me anything about this. He was stalking your friend? Like following her around?"

"Yeah. I didn't know how mental he was until I read all of that. I mean, I had my suspicions, certainly, but one can’t really know for sure until they’re smacked in the face with it. I sat in his study that night poring over journals and photos and possessions, and just an entire...an entire fucking shrine to my best friend. It was horrifying. I had never felt such profound heartbreak, shock and terror in all my life. I knew then I had to leave, and that’s when I snuck out in the middle of the night, served him with divorce papers without contacting him, realized he never asked me to sign a prenuptial agreement, and took him for everything he had.."

"I know, baby. You tell me that part every time, girl. You are so god damned proud of that, as you should be. So this is the one who emailed you."

She swats at my arm with a playful sort of aggression: the lioness that she is. My African Queen. She's Namibian in case you didn't know, as I'm not always sure what I've mentioned, and I can't talk about Judy enough.

"Yes," I say as I pin the last of my hair on top of my head with a bobby pin, "and now we're going to have coffee together and catch up a bit."

"Good luck," she says with that funny sarcastic tone, that beautiful condescension that tells me how much she loves me, "just don't act on that crush, okay?" 

With my hair and makeup finally finished I turn around and bend over to give my love a kiss. She cups my face with her hands and pulls my face close to hers again, resting her forehead against mine. I kiss her soft, delicate hands and look into her wide, beautiful brown eyes. 

"You saved my life, you know." 

I tell her this all the time. If it weren't for Judy I think I'd still be dating men. Eugh. I often do wonder if I ever would've figured it out if I had never met her. I like to think that I wouldn’t have ever known. 

"Eh, you're just buttering me up so you can go cheat on me with this Maisie person." 

She smiles, letting me know she's only teasing, and thank goodness. I don't cheat. Having been cheated on so many times I know how that feels, and I won't go anywhere near situations like that. I'm not that type. Besides, if I ever had a crush on Maisie I wasn't aware of it, and we certainly never went past anything but some innocent flirting. 

"Don't worry, dear. She was very pretty, but you're my only one." 

"I'm not actually worried," she says. She gives me the head shake, smile and eye roll that she gives me sometimes. "Now get your silly ass out of here before I decide I'm not joking and keep you busy in this bed."

With one more smile back at her I wrap myself in my faux fox fur jacket (I'm not sorry - it's a convincing fake) and get in the car. The drive is normal, if short, because it's only a few minutes from my house. I'm so nervous. What are we going to talk about? I really hope I don't slip and let out anything about Roger. I'd really prefer to just let her go on living without knowing that. I'm just going to be very mindful. I'm sure Roger is going to come up...that is how we met, after all...and I did abandon her because of him. But beyond that there's nothing I want to hold back from Maisie. Re-connecting is going to be wonderful. I wouldn't be surprised if things just went right back to how they were. They certainly seemed to when we were on the phone, didn't they?

A white Lexus happens to pull up next to my car, and I look over at the woman driving it: I can tell she's on the petite side because of how close she is to the steering wheel. Her long, wavy silver hair disappears under the window so I can't tell how long it is. She's wearing the same colour lipstick as Judy, but it works for her somehow. I'd know those beautiful, plump lips anywhere, and the audacity of the lip colour is such a shock, much like the entire presentation. The curvaceous queen in the black blazer with black slacks, thick frame cat eye sunglasses, a black sun hat and red bottom shoes...that cannot be my sweet little friend. I refuse to believe it. 

I step out, and she takes one look at me and then removes her sunglasses. The sparkle in her brown eyes gives her away.

"Cora?!" 

She throws her arms out wide and she laugh-squeals. How I missed that cute little sound! I run toward her and we throw our arms around one another, and I can smell the sea salt spray she bought from me in her hair, and it's obvious to me she's trying to let the curls grow in again because of her soft silver waves, and I'm very glad for it. Maisie's hair is truly her crowning glory. Only she would remember to do that, as well: to make sure to wear the spray when she was coming to see me. When we pull apart I take a look at her unique, angular face with her big almond shaped eyes and her cute Jewish nose (don't tell her about it; her mother hated it and so she hates it, but it's so adorable). She's far more beautiful now than she was when I knew her...she was always 'cute', but I always thought one needed to be a bit taller to be called beautiful. Obviously I was wrong: she used to be a little hippie, but now she's a business lady: a cool, well put together business lady with the blazer and well cut blue jeans that cling to muscular, but generous legs. Classy Loubotin shoes, the black stilettos with the red bottoms. Ah, my pretty little imp is a full grown sophisticate now. I can't decide whether I'm disappointed or jealous, or whether I'm simply in awe of the transformation.

"Maisie! My goodness, you're different from what I expected!"

"You're the same as I expected, and I mean that in the best way. You look absolutely fabulous."

I should hope so! I don't work out every day for nothing! And those hair masks and face masks and all that other bullshit that Maisie actually helped me learn, none of that would even matter if I didn't look as good as I do. 

We link arms and walk together into the cafe. I've never been here before, actually. It's a small, homey type of place. The 'hygge' style - Danish, I think. What a delight this little place is with its log furniture and argyle pattern throw blankets, and dim lanterns burning in the middle of the tables. A lovely warm fire burns in the fireplace; it's nice for early spring to have the fire burning like this. We seat ourselves at a cute table next to a bay window and open up the menus given to us by the sweet, mousy young lady who followed us to our table without saying two words. She’s very pretty, but I could make her look like a supermodel.

"I'll just have a hot latte with skim milk, if that's alright."

"Maisie, you're such an American, the way you talk! May I have the same thing, you poor dear? Don't let my Yankee friend here intimidate you!" 

"I didn't even say anything rude, you! I would know if I were being rude. I'm only ever rude on purpose."

The poor, scared little mouse scurries off away from us laughing old biddies. I look Maisie right in the eyes… her sparkly brown eyes that remind me a little of Judy's now that I'm seeing her again.

"How I've missed you, my friend." 

She pulls an envelope out of her black Michael Kors purse and gives it to me. It's decorated with some interesting lines and strange shapes, some green, some blue, some brown and red... it's very colourful. This is Syd that did all this I presume, and it's just lovely. What abstract, innocent art. Syd seems like a delight of a man the way Maisie describes him. I'd love to meet him before he passes. 

"Syd and I made this. Well, he drew it, and I coloured it in. We've taken to doing that lately. He taught me how to bake my coloured pencils to fix them."

How lovely! They make art together: that's precious. The pure, beautiful love they share is so blindingly obvious as I open this sweet card that it almost hurts my eyes, and I can't tell that two different people coloured and drew it. It's a beautiful bouquet of a whole bunch of different flowers, all in different colours...purple, pink, turquoise, different shades of blue and yellow. The shading is lovely: it seems like she's gotten quite good. I imagine they do things like this a bit, what with him being so private and also not being well. 

"I love it, Maisie. Wow. This is just so precious." It says Welcome Back Cora!! on it. "I can't believe you'd do something so sweet."

"It was his idea. I'm not that kind."

I don't know why Maisie assumes she's anything other than kind. Sure, she could be a bit of an emotional drain at times, but everyone understood and we adored her anyway. Just like with Jane...we loved her even though she always wanted to be around us but never talk to us. For all their drama and stupidity they were a loving and quietly accepting group. Maisie was no trouble for me: all she really ever needed was comfort, and it would pass quickly. David and I were experts, but Roger was very good in a pinch. He always stepped in to rescue her from all sorts of things: a car, drowning, an aggressive fan, the...accident...the flat tire. And how he held her in St. Tropez when he saved her from drowning. So close to his chest, he'd said. He could make sure she'd hear his heart beating, he'd said. And how he'd whispered his feelings into her ear as he pumped water from her lungs. He barely ever told me he loved me.

"Stop it. Of course you are. The two of you did so well on this: it's beautiful. Oh, I'm so happy to see you looking so happy, and so beautiful. Maisie, you're a knockout!" 

"Stop it," she says with a smile from behind her mug. "I'm an old hag."

"Oh, now you stop it. No one says that to you, I'd bet a million pounds, and I have it.."

"No one says that: I just feel that way sometimes. I'm not what I was."

"Well, love, you're anything but. You're some kind of grey maned Wonder Woman or ... really like, may I say, a zaftig model if you weren't so petite."

"Well, I decided after David that I wanted to go grey and kind of go goth, so that's what I did. I was too old to really go goth, so I just went professional goth. Like this. I'm a writer: no one questioned it. You know who I suspect says that, though?" 

Her eyes get the mischievous look I remember from that day she told me about Jane kissing another girl in the park. That was the day I gave her the makeover, and Roger ruined it by all but calling her plain after she'd just confessed that she felt plain. 

"Who?"

"My unfortunately future sister in law."

"Oh, sad little Rosemary Barrett. What a tiny little awkward wet puppy she was."

"Breen now. Rosemary Breen. And yeah, what a sad little scrawny ginger thing. Still has that awful ginger hair too in such a matronly cut, if I dare say so. Wears dog sweaters. Has decorative china cat plates from tchotchke magazines. You know the type. Goes to church."

"So someone married her? What a sap. What a bore she always was, and a teacher's pet."

"Sap he was, I guess, but she got a great son out of it, I'll say that much. Rosemary herself is still pretty terrible, but her son is a doll. He's so patient with Syd, too." 

"I remember going to school with Rosemary Barrett. She was a few years younger than me. Always seemed like a little old church lady in the making. She was the one who always used to tattle when we all had too much fun and never invited her because she was a mean little rat."

"She ended up an old church lady, alright."

"Oh, did she now? Tell me everything, darling."

Maisie and I sip our lattes at the same time and I place mine down in front of me just a moment before she does hers, and she leans over and rests her chin on her hands after embarrassingly wiping some berry lipstick off the rim of her mug.

"This was supposed to stay put on my lips. It always says that, doesn't it?"

"Aren't you in luck? I had a shade just like that produced because I love it on Judy, and it actually does stay on."

"Can I order it on the website?"

"Nonsense. You're my friend. I'll just get it for you."

"No, no. You're a businesswoman and you deserve to be paid. I'll order it from home. You just write down the shade for me." 

I scribble the product name and shade number on a napkin, and pass it to her. She tucks it into a pocket in her black leather purse. Italian vegan leather, I think, probably custom made. I'm not completely surprised. 

"Now go on. Tell me more about Mrs. Breen. What's the husband like?"

"Dead. A heart attack, apparently. He was in great shape from what Syd said about him. Worked out every day, almost. Non-smoker. Ate an average diet, but that's not enough to kill an otherwise healthy guy. Just...boom, congestive heart failure. Died right there on the living room floor before the paramedics could revive him."

"Were there heart issues in the family?"

She shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee while she plays with a salt shaker on the table. Her face droops with disinterest and disaffection while she rolls it around on all its sides and focuses her eyes on it like she's bored, but I know it's not with me.

"I dunno. Either she did it directly, which I doubt because she's such a timid uptight witch with these extremely delicate sensitivities, or she drove him to it. I really fucking hate her, Cora. I really do," she sighs almost like she's whining to me. It sounds like this might be the first time she's admitted that out loud to anyone.

"Now, I don't blame you, because no one ever liked her. My guess is that she's made a very big show of herself taking care of her brother?"

"Oh, you know it. You fucking know it. She just loves pretending she hates talking to the media and doing interviews, but she lives for it, Cora. She had another interview she was doing on his behalf last weekend. But yes, she's such a loving, attentive sister. A loving sister who then just lets him collapse in her front yard in the cold?"

"Are you serious? Is that what happened?"

"He was out in the garden painting. It's early March, it's still freezing. He had a light jacket on, which I gave him because he was feeling okay when he left, and I didn't expect her to let him sit out there for that long."

"How long was he out there without help?"

"Long enough for a neighbour to notice and call the ambulance."

"Oh, you're kidding me. You must be."

"I mean, it's totally possible that he didn't yell and she missed the thud, but…"

"Really, it's most likely that she just didn't hear him. But why did he collapse?"

"He put his insulin down somewhere and couldn't remember where he put it, and his blood sugar crashed. He waited too long to eat, I guess. And then she pulled some shit in the hospital with me calling him by the name I always called him. Can you believe that?"

"That's quite intrusive, honestly. And unnecessary. What would ever make her do a thing like that?"

"I really hate to accuse other women of being jealous, but she's definitely jealous. She likes being a caretaker, or at least the prestige that comes with being Syd Barrett's caretaker, and now that's all on me. And she thinks Syd loves me more than her. I can see it in her face every time we're all together."

"Oh, shut up. He does. He always did. That day at the studio? When Rick married Jane finally?"

"Let's not mention Jane. I can't even go back to that."

"We were lucky to have lived."

"Oh, for sure. But let's... let's not. Anyway…"

We don't talk about Jane. No one does. I think one thing that truly amazed me about that whole circle was their ability to just stuff their business under the rug and never mention it again. They barely talked about anything with Syd, especially what he did to Maisie. I never found out until she told me herself, in fact. No one talks about Jane and the accident, and no one talks about Rick's resulting addiction. Somehow, everyone else came out alive that night, but Jane...it was tragic. I'd be surprised if anyone mentioned it before now. It's only because I don't care about any of them but Maisie now that I'm even saying this much. And I'm sure at one point someone will open up completely about it, but I'll never forget how Roger carried Maisie out but left me to run myself, or the look of abject horror and resignation in Rick's eyes when he watched her... god, it's too horrific to talk about in length. 

"Anyway...I doubt Syd would ever have howled and fought like that for his sister. Of course he loves you more than her. He loves you more than anyone who's ever lived, I think." 

Maisie's face brightens up when I mention this blatant fact. Her stark, sexy lips curl up in a smile, and she stares down at the salt shaker she's still rolling around on the table. 

"Yeah... Syd is my precious jewel. He's my beautiful beam of light. I love him in a way I've never loved anyone else."

"Not even David?"

I wait while she pauses to answer. She looks around, her eyes bounce from one end of the room to the other. It looks like she's seriously considering it. Her hair, shining silver in the sunlight, falls in her face as she looks down toward the white tablecloth with its red Scandinavian style intricate patterns, and she tries to hide the smile that's forming along the corner of her lips.

"No. Not even David. I loved David just as much, and my god...I haven't stopped loving him for one second of all these years... but I have something with Syd that I never had with him. With David everything was… I'm not sure what I want to say. It's different, but I can't really and truly describe it. It's magic, but our relationship was always magical. Before...all that, anyway."

"I think it's wonderful, Maisie. Truly wonderful. Now what about this bachelorette party? What's the plan?"

"Oh, I don't know. I think probably just sitting at Rosemary's house with no alcohol and no Mary Jane, and boring conversation. I'm sure Jesus will be involved, as well. As he naturally should be. Involved in my marriage, as well."

"I'll change that. We'll figure something out. Will Syd be there?"

"No, no. His nephew is throwing him his own party, remember?"

"That's right. Well, you leave it to me. I'll throw you a lovely bachelorette party. Rosemary be damned."

"You're a peach, Cora."

"Thank you," I say meekly as we both stand up and put on our coats.

"For what?"

Her refusal to bring Roger up with me really saved me the trouble of having to purposely avoid the topic. Keeping the secret kills me, but I know she'd rather live not knowing. 

"Not talking about...you know. My ex husband."

"Oh. Well, I don't want to talk about him either. He's a long gone memory for you, and definitely for me. There's no need to discuss him, not when we both have so much happiness and love in our lives."

"May I bring Judy with me to the party, or would you rather she stayed home, by the way?"

"Bring her, please! I'm happy to meet her. And anything that keeps the focus off of Sister Rosemary could only be a good thing!"


	25. Rick - St. Tropez, France, 1969 - The After-party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick observes David and Maisie react to David being propositioned, and also Roger dealing with his misery the best way he knows how.

_Since Jane left the after party to go back to our cabin I've been shooing French sluts away with grave disinterest. Sure, we've all done it, fucked these easy chicks, but it's all the same. Gets boring. Jane would let me, too. She'd even join in, perhaps, if the mood struck her, but I feel no need. With my cigarette hanging out of my mouth my eyes scan the room. I hate these things, these parties. I'd much prefer to be on my own, with Jane, or with my friends, but the record company and Roger insist that we throw these horrid, ridiculous, and ostentatious parties, and for what real purpose? All that ends up happening is everyone gets drunk or stoned, walks off to fuck, or has a row in front of everyone else. I'm not sure why I decided to stay when Jane left, but I suppose I do feel sort of obligated. Not that anyone would give a wild fuck whether or not I stepped out: I'm not David, nor am I Roger. Those two are the ones everyone fawns over. I'm happier that way, anyhow. I find myself to be more of a watcher than a doer._

_So, let's see what there is to watch, shall we? Ah, over there we have Nick and Amelia fighting about him speaking to a French girl... she's obviously drunk and angry. Amelia gets like that. I think she's got a poor attitude. The girls are probably all very nice about Amelia, and I doubt anyone else has mentioned it, but Amelia's a fucking bitch. I like her, and she's got a good head on her shoulders, but God damn if she isn't a huge fucking bitch. Nick doesn't care. Nick doesn't care about anything, really. That's why they're a good match: anyone else would've dumped her on her arse by now._

_"I can't even bloody believe you right now, Nick, you fucking arsehole! What's wrong with you?"_

_She's beating on his chest like an ape, and he's just standing there and taking it, the big dope. Seriously, there's no one more even tempered than this guy. Look at him not even being bothered by her acting like an overgrown toddler. Her long, straight brown hair falls down her back like spaghetti, and Nick is standing there with his arms crossed, rolling his eyes. Nothing to see here. Pretty normal for her to make an idjit out of herself when she's pissed out of her mind like this._

_Too bad Jane's not here. Nothing would be better than watching this group of fools make fools of themselves than doing it with her. Alas, she couldn't deal with it any longer: all the noise and alcohol and the chaotic energy of others. My Jan is very sensitive, I'll have you know, but I wouldn't have her any other way. You don't happen to know her, do you? You're unlikely to talk to her because she would have trouble talking to you, probably. I'm one of two people (outside of her family, and the other being Amelia) who she talks to regularly._

_Ah, Maisie and David are over there sitting on a loveseat sharing a joint. Not touching, but sitting close together, and I watch while a blonde bimbo type slides in next to David on the arm of the loveseat. She's wearing a real gutter trash lacy red dress that barely covers her arse and her fanny, and her huge breasts are spilling out of her top. Yuck. This is Roger's type. She leans over and says something to David, and she's wrapping a finger around a lock of his hair. Maisie's face falls, and her eyes widen as David turns his head to look at this superficial babe I know he isn't into, but I see her brighten up as he moves the fine young lady's hand away and puts up his hand to put a barrier between them. He turns back to Maisie, who's beaming and I can see she's really impressed. Good for them. Good for her. This rat's nest who bothered them stands up, dejected, and I can tell she's drunk. She went from flirty and desperate to fucking enraged in seconds. She fucking grabs Maisie by her shirt, pulls her up, and grabs at her hair. God damn, what a fascinating spectacle this situation is. I couldn't ask for any more._

_"Hey!", he bellows at this barely clothed Barbie looking gentlewoman, "Leave her alone, yeah?"_

_He doesn't get anywhere near her, but he gets between her and Maisie and spreads his arms out to block Maisie from anymore harm. She grabs onto his back and sinks into him, and from across the room I spy Roger stumbling in, bottle of some kind of liquor he's barely hanging onto, and his arms around two more blondes. Jesus Christ, there's enough blondes here to go around, but where's a good redhead when you need one? Back at my cabin, that's where._

_They're both hanging onto him and giggling while he stumbles around like a zombie with a stupid fucking grin on his face when he spots the altercation that's boiling over between David and this gutter rat. His eyes lock on to Maisie clinging to David for dear life, looking safe and protected behind him, and for the millionth time I watch as his poor heart is so obviously breaking when he sees it. I almost tear up when his face falls and his eyes get that haunted, sad look. Poor Roger. All he can do is wish for her. She'll never have him, not unless she finds a way to slither into her heart and cheats her out of the chance to say no._

_He glares in David's direction and then turns back to march off with these two chicks and do whatever he does with them. His business, not mine. This is what I hoped he'd do anyway. He was in such an absolute shit mood during final rehearsal and while we were getting ready for the gig today. Acted like a tyrant and a stupid fucking diva scolding us all for shit he doesn't even do or do well. Telling David what pedals to use, telling me what keys to play in on songs I fucking wrote, yelling at Nick to stop drumming so hard...and on and in and on. Demanded his own space to dress, wouldn't talk to anyone. Ugh. I heard he had such a drunken meltdown last night that he puked for maybe five minutes straight after having already thrown up and passed out, and that Maisie, kind as she is, helped him. Held his hair back while he kept throwing up and then bathed him, then helped him dress and quite literally put him to bed. Wow, he must feel terrible after that. No wonder he's marching off with these fine, upstanding members of the community. I'm sure he's up to nothing good._

_We shall see, shan't we?_


	26. Maisie - Cambridge, April 2006 - Syd And Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and Syd share a quiet evening at home.

It was such a nice night we had tonight. Syd and I decided to work on another piece after dinner (I attempted to feed him spinach and quinoa tonight - that didn't go over well. I let him have chicken breast and cabbage instead, with as little spice as possible: his one terrible, unfortunate flaw.). He drew me this intricate entry door to a fairy garden to color tonight: a vision right out of a fairy tale. It was surrounded by all these different shaped and sized stones: sort of a border around a worn wooden door. The grains in the wood were so well pronounced the wood looked real, and right in the middle he drew a sweet butterfly, the yellow kind with rounded little wings. He drew this all freehand with no reference materials; I was in absolute awe of him and how he looked so serious as he surveyed every movement of his pencil on the paper, planning every stroke with lightning precision. He very seldom looks more at home than when he paints or sketches, and in these times I love him so much that I can feel it taking over me and choking me up like a dam. Not only those times, though...really, all the time, but especially those times. There’s something so, so surreal about watching him do what he loves that makes me love him all that much more. 

I remember when he asked me to color his sketches with him the first time, and I came home with a 12 pack of Crayola colored pencils as anyone would do. He was horrified: it was hilarious, looking back at it. "Maisie," he'd said with a very serious urgency, almost like he was alarmed, "you needn't have wasted your money on this rubbish. I have real ones, you know. The kind that actually cover the entire page and don't leave white underneath. This is pure trash."

I laughed so hard even though I shouldn’t have; I simply couldn't help myself. He wondered what was so funny, and I explained that I had no idea that there was a difference between types of colored pencils. That's when he laughed at me! I admitted it was pretty silly of me not to assume. Then he dropped the box of Crayolas straight into the garbage can, and I lost my shit I laughed so hard, wow. Since then he lets me use his as long as I bake them as soon as the points break, which does actually seem to fix them more often than not. 

I colored the sketch of the door he gave me with browns, pinks, reds and greens, and he helped me with the shading because I find that pretty difficult still, even though I’m sure I’ll get it soon, and I’m starting to get it now. A little. I shivered when we sat so close together and he took my hand and guided me in the way I should be blending the pencil strokes so it looked seamless. Every brush of his arm against mine sends shivers down my spine. I could swear I’m getting turned on, but it’s not…we haven’t. I don’t think that Syd can really perform. I mean, I’ve slept in that position with a bunch of guys, and all of them got an erection from it at one point or another. Syd doesn’t even stir. And it’s fine...I don’t know if there’s...a sexual spark there between us anyway, anymore. It simply hasn’t come up, and I don’t really feel as if I’m lacking anything. I’m not sure I’d want to if he did. 

Anyhow, I leaned my head between his neck and his shoulder then. I let myself hang loose, observing every which way he guided me, and feeling fully present in our closeness. After a few moments I looked up at him and couldn’t help myself: I kissed his cheek. He’s too wonderful. Sometimes I wonder if he’s even real. Am I in a coma? Sometimes I feel like I must be in a coma because Syd is so wonderful that he feels too good to be true. 

Now as I stand over the sink cleansing my face for the night, staring into the mirror, I start to let my mind wander. I never thought I'd get married. Not since I left David, anyway, and by that time I'd accepted that we weren't going to get married. I'm not sure why we never did, but I'm pretty sure that David and I were just having too much fun and were so in love that we never noticed that we forgot to get married. And then after David... only the women I dated were serious, and marriage obviously wasn't an option there. Back then no one even considered that, or yeah, I guess they did. People have been fighting for marriage equality for a long time; I'm not sure why I assumed that my experience is typical. So... really, marriage was never in the cards for me, but here I am...a few days away from marrying my first love. I was at peace with my decision to remain unmarried, but I never realized that I truly wanted it until Syd asked me to marry him. I look up into the mirror after I rinse my cleanser off and spill some toner onto a cotton pad. I swipe the soaked cotton pad all over my face and then pat all the toner into my skin. You’re not supposed to rub it in, you’re supposed to pat it in. Next, I do the same with what's called 'essence' in Korea, and then I squeeze some serum out of a dropper into my palms and pat that in. Oh, and I'm not even done. As my skin soaks in more and more moisture and I stare at it, marveling at it from every angle, I see Syd appear behind me, leaning against the doorway. His eyes are lit with a flame of admiration as he watches me push ahead with this exhaustive (but rewarding) routine as I apply some eye cream around both of my eyes. He smiles at me, and I can see the sun rising in his face.

"Why all this fuss? You don't need all this."

"Trust me, dear," I say, "if I didn't do this I'd look…" I gasp aloud: maybe I'm serious, maybe I'm joking "...my age!"

Syd walks over and wraps his arms around my shoulders from behind me. My face relaxes into a smile as I feel the warmth of his arms enfolding my body. I feel home. We feel home. He leans his chin on my shoulder, and then turns his head, and I can feel his lips innocently brush my cheek. I watch him grin at himself in the mirror, not really considering that I can also see him: he thinks he was being naughty. He rocks me a little too hard, and I giggle, rocking back and forth along with him. I don’t care that it’s a little too hard. I’m happy to let him play a little rough right now. As long as it makes him happy. 

"My Maisie," he whispers in my ear with that flirty voice he has, "I would love you just the same. You could be so ugly to everyone else, but to me you're the most beautiful woman on the planet. You don't need to make such a fuss for me."

I turn around to face him, and I creep my arms around his neck, and then I can feel his hands slide up my arms and grip them. We share a lit up, loving, perfect look. I can see a million fireflies in his soft, beautiful brown eyes. I pull his head down and kiss his forehead, and we keep rocking one another, almost like we're dancing. 

"I know you would, my sweet baby, but I do this just for me. And so other women will be a little jealous, if I'm being honest. I like to care for myself. But if..."

My voice trails off because I caught myself right before I continued. I was going to say 'if we could grow old together', but the words are too cruel, and the feelings are too real, and it needs to remain unsaid. We are lucky he has gotten so far, especially after everything the doctor has said, but I still can't come to terms with going back to living without him. So I'll avoid saying that. All that matters are these moments we have together.

"I love your grey hair and your laugh lines and all of it. I love that you've lived a happy life, and it shows in your face. But you don't look old, not ever. You look like a fresh faced vegetable queen."

“A vegetable queen, huh? I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.” 

“It means…” He whispers in my ear, “...that you’re like an earth goddess or something. That’s what I mean when I say it.” 

“You’re too kind to me, you know.”

Syd lets me go back to my routine, but he keeps his hands on my shoulders, and he watches every step I have left with piqued interest : emulsion, moisturizer, facial oil, sunscreen, and sleeping mask. I stand back as I finish and show off for him, pretending there’s any real difference in my skin, and I watch as his eyes quickly roam over every inch of my face. He’s never looked at me this way before: it’s almost haunting. I feel afraid for a very fleeting moment: terrified in the immediate that I might be in danger, but it isn’t like back then when he did what he did. He’s still himself now, only...deeper. More involved. More serious, and more alive. He’s thinking or planning something, but what? There’s none of the mischievous spark he gets when he’s up to something, but he doesn’t look angry, not at all. I’ve never found him more difficult to read since I’ve been here, but I just know that after that fleeting moment I don’t feel at all threatened. I feel like Syd is learning me: studying my every movement and it’s almost as if I’m one of his paintings. He spins me around like we’re doing a beautiful dance together, and I almost find myself unable to resist getting up on my toes and kissing him full on the mouth.

“There’s no such thing as being too kind to you, though,” he says softly, and I feel a stirring between my thighs. Fuck. This wasn’t something I was expecting to have to deal with. It's just that the way he was looking at me...it was almost sexy. It was…. Is sexy. Yeah, that sexual spark I was almost certain was never going to be there just moments ago? It's there, and it's strong. So strong, in fact, that I'm finding myself having a very difficult time not jumping him right here. I wonder how he'd respond if I tried to have sex with him right now. If I took his hand and pulled him into the bedroom, and I stripped us both naked, and I took him in my mouth until he was hard as a rock for me... would he enjoy that, or is he not interested? If I lie down, my legs spread, and I let him watch me play with myself, would it make him aroused? I can't tell if he has no sexual feelings at all, or if he has them but can't act on them. Or maybe he discovered he doesn't like sex with women. Syd was never really a fan of having his own orgasms. I feel selfish, but if he doesn't want to get off I guess I'd like to. Would it be selfish of me to ask him to eat me out? I think it would only be selfish if I didn't offer to do anything for him, and I want to offer...god, do I want to offer...but I'm not sure how to broach the subject. I've been here for almost four months, and it just hasn't come up. Not once. So it's a little difficult to know exactly what to say when in four months we've never even discussed sex. I'm so nervous I can feel my heart thumping in my chest as I slide my hand up his stomach and toward his chest muscles. He stares into my eyes, and he grabs my hand and pulls it toward his lips, and I tremble as he kisses my hand three times. If there were ever a time for him to read my mind, it would be now. Right now, in this moment, when I'm so close to asking him, but so terrified to actually say the words I he could read my mind and help me figure out how to tell him that I'm burning up with desire for him, desire I never thought I'd feel. 

I can't do it. I'm too shy, and I'm afraid of being rejected. Me, shy about sex and afraid of rejection. Isn't that something? Maybe when I was young that would have made more sense, but I'm not like that anymore...you know that by now. Could it be that I'm not totally certain that Syd is attracted to me sexually? I know he loves me, don't get me wrong, but he's not tried once, nor has he had even a stir of an erection ever...what if he thinks I'm too old? And why am I so afraid to ask him if that's what it is or if he has trouble with sex in general? This is something we should talk about, isn't it? Somehow, right now, with my hand against his lips and my body so close to his, I can't remember why it ever mattered. 

Ever since the day Roger walked up to me in the botanical gardens and took my arm in his, and I got wet for the first time...I've been a sex fiend. Once we started actually having sex it only got worse: I could have gone at any time, and to this day I'm still like that. I love sex, and that's the understatement of the century if you've ever heard it, and I bet you thought so when I said it, too. I've had so much sex I should be tired of it, and I'm still not anywhere near tired of it. I've left casual relationships specifically because the sex was mildly disappointing. It's always mattered. 

But I look into Syd's eyes: his radiant, lively, relentless child's eyes, and I don't remember why it ever mattered as much as it did. What were all those other relationships missing that made sex so important? I don't think I can find a clear answer in my head, but I know there is one to find when I watch his eyes as they stare back into mine. My entire world is in his eyes, and that's the moment I realize I'm not marrying Syd because he's dying and he wanted to get married... it's because I was meant to marry Syd all along, and I knew it then. I forgot, but he didn't. He remembered that we were always meant to be together this way. He never blamed me for forgetting... anyone would have forgotten after that, but things never worked with anyone else...not even David...and ultimately, it may be because all along my husband has been somewhere I never thought I'd find him again.


	27. Roger - St. Tropez, France - 1969 - The Cabin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW: there is violence against women in this chapter as well as smut
> 
> Roger, drunk and with two groupies at his disposal, can't help but go to a very dark place when he hears the two women laughing at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concludes the St. Tropez arc of our story. The next destination story takes place in Boston.

_Do you really think I know these bitches' names? I have no idea what they even really look like: I've been drinking on and off since this bloody morning when I saw them in bed together. David and Maisie, that is, not these two cum dumpsters. That's right: they were in bed together, and even though they were at opposite ends of the bed I couldn't help feeling as if maybe she had only given me her bed so she could sleep with David. The fucking pain. I can't even tell you of the fucking pain._

_I'm going to fuck them after I finish this cigarette and whatever is left in this bottle. I don't know what it is, really. It's whatever the manager gave me before the show started when I demanded he find me something to drink or I wouldn't go on stage. I haven't been able to be sober for long at all today. Fuck. These past few days have been the worst of my life. If nothing else this sex will fucking take my mind off of seeing them in bed together after she … she was so kind to me._

_This cigarette is so fucking good because I am having it alone. I had to get out of that room, those bitches are so bloody noisy they never stop talking. Giggling like a gaggle of fucking hyenas. I can still hear them in there, the dumb birds. What are they laughing at, anyway? Who do they think they are, laughing at me? They should feel fucking lucky to be here, those stupid bints. To hell with them. They can shut the fuck up, they're here for one reason only, damn it._

_I only wish I could have been with her now instead of hosting these skanky wastes in my room to fucking block her out for ten minutes before I pass out and fucking embarrass myself again in front of Maisie. I wish she would have slept with me. I was so close to asking her to please spend the night with me in her bed, but she was so insistent that I stop talking. I only wanted to be close to her._

_Fine, I guess I'll go out there and entertain these girls for a bit. Are they even really that hot? Middling. They'll do for the evening. I don't even remember speaking with them, to be honest with you. I don't remember meeting them, or even when they approached me. That's how little this fucking random sex means to me. So many men fantasize about being a rock star. I did once, too: that's part of why I did it. That's part of why we all did it. The fucking sex fantasies. Sure, when you're just starting out it's awesome, but now when I've watched all my friends fall in love and I've fallen in love too, but can't have even a second of what they have...now the sex is just a bandage. It only stops the bleeding of my fucking heart for a few moments until it's over, and they leave, and I'm all alone again and have to be present with the reality that now she sleeps with David. But she touched me. She comforted me. She washed my face and my hair and she was so nice to me, and I'll never have her._

_I walk back out into the room she slept in with him to fuck these dirty froggy slags and send them away. I had half a mind to fuck them in her bed, but I couldn't stand to hurt her. I knew she'd know, and I could only imagine her crying and insulted for two seconds before I sent the thought from my mind._

_"Get on the bed. Let's get it over with, then. "They both stare at me like dumb deer in headlights. What do they think they came here for? "Get on the bed, you dumb cunts."_

_They probably had some fantasy where I was going to be attentive and kind to them, maybe wine and dine them beforehand...make the experience worth whatever pathetic fat old man they sucked off to get into the after-party. Yeah, I'm sure there are a bunch of rock stars that might, but I'm not one of them. Groupies are good for one thing, and petty conversation is not that thing._

_For some reason they do as I tell them. Poor, desperate, pathetic little slags. They let themselves be disrespected by me, and for what? So I can fuck them and not even make them cum, and then throw them out? Because that's what's about to happen._

_Both of them crawl onto the bed, and they start to strip off their clothes, and I do the same. I lie down and direct both of them toward my hard cock, and they suck me off for awhile while I lie there barely enjoying it. I like it enough to stay hard, but inside, in my head, it kills me. I can feel their mouths on me, and when I finally open my eyes they notice, and they start kissing. Exploiting lesbians is only hot once or twice before it starts to make one cringe._

_"Don't do that. I don't like that, girls kissing. Just suck my cock."_

_I close my eyes again, and I'm so bored when they suck my cock that I finally just shrug them off and ask them to turn over on their stomachs. I pick the taller one to mount, and order the shorter one to play with my balls while I fuck her friend from behind. She's pretty god damn tight. Maybe I can just cum in the next few seconds and get this shitshow over with. But in order to cum I've got to think of her...if I don't think of Maisie and her soft breasts and her warm, wet pussy and her big, round tight ass I won't get off. I grab at the breasts of the chick I'm fucking deep and hard and I think about her tight pussy belonging to Maisie although I can feel the difference so I just have to force myself to think it's hers. I can feel her warm body beneath mine taking the full force of my thrusts and I can only envision Maisie beneath me, screaming my name as I force myself inside her. It's driving me insane with pleasure. I swear to god I can feel my cock pushing inside her pussy, and I could swear it was really hers…_

_"Maisie," I moan with no control over my impulses. I seem to have forgotten that the cunts I've invited to my room are a poor fucking substitute for her. I was about to cum until I screamed her name and those bitches laughed at me. Not any longer.They're laughing, those cunts. I can't make out what they're saying to each other, but I couldn't give one fuck less what they're actually saying. I can tell they're laughing at me, those pathetic wastes. They're making fun of me._

_"Get out!" I scream at them, and even I can hear the shrill edge to my voice, like a nightmare. They scatter, scrambling off the bed like mice and cowering in the corner. I can feel the rage rising in my fucking belly: how dare they make a joke out of me? They're the ones that are so pathetic that I can't even enjoy sex with them. Nothing is worse than disappointing groupies._

_I'm hurling a fucking line of abuse at them: I've got no idea what I'm saying...shit is just flying from my mouth. I'm totally out of control. The fire in my belly fucking burns like it's out of control and can't be extinguished, and I can barely breathe the smoke chokes me so. Next thing I know I'm picking up the horrid purple lamp on the table next to my bed and I toss it square at one of the little whores...why the fuck haven't they left yet? "Get out, you fucking froggy gutter rats! Go home!" The lamp hits the shorter one right in the chest, and I burst out fucking laughing at her, the stupid cunt. She winces and whines, and finally her friend who apparently has an ounce of sense drags her out._

_Fucking finally. They're gone. A lot of use they were, anyway. A lot of good they did. I thought I'd calm down when they left, but now I'm just more pissed off. Now they're not here to distract me, and I'm simply left with my thoughts. I'm left with my fucking memories and my piece of shit broken heart that nothing will ever mend until she gives in and sees once and for all that there's no one else who could ever love her this much. What a day that'll be, huh? When she comes back to me...what a fucking day that'll be._

_God damn it all she really dangled herself in front of me on a string like a slab of meat when I was starving, and she never let me have enough to eat to feel anywhere near satisfied. She was so close to me, god damn it, and I was naked and vulnerable, and she … she cared for me. Fuck._

_I pick up the lamp again, lying on the floor where it landed after it hit that stupid bitch before they finally got the message and left me alone. I'm all alone now, haha. All alone, as always. Roger is alone and drunk after a gig with a stupid fucking ugly lamp on the floor. This lamp. Who thought this stupid thing was ever a good idea, anyway? I'm filled with disgust when I look at it. It turned from just boring to rage inducing in a few meager minutes. I grab the blasted thing and I can swear I'm about to crush it in my grip when I lose control of myself and send it flying into the wall. It shatters with a crashing sound that's deafening to me in my stupor. I stare at the pile of ceramic pieces on the floor...purple fragments of what was, much like my long ago broken relationship with Maisie. And then I can only think of the rage. It's festering, boiling inside me like a pot of hot sick. I'm so enraged I could kill a man with my bare hands. David, actually. I could kill David with my bare hands. I could crush his fucking windpipe so easily if I snuck in while he was sleeping and just fucking killed him. I'd fucking kill him and take her away and make her love me._

_Why would she do this? Why would she be so kind to me and why would she comfort and take care of me? What possible motivation could she have? Maisie hates me. Does she want to torture me? Does she want me to live in agony, desperate for her? I'm so desperate for her love and her kiss and the feeling of her body so close to mine. Her arms wrapped around me, and her sweet smile as she gazes into my face. Now when I think of how I can't have those things, in this moment it makes me even angrier. She dangled herself in front of me, and she has no intention to let me love her. She doesn't intend at all to let me hold her and kiss her and tell her every word she makes me think of, every feeling she makes me feel. She was only being friendly, but I need her. I need her, damn it, and it's not fair._

_David doesn't need her. He doesn't. He could find a woman to love him, any woman, why does he want mine? No one loves me. Maisie could love me if she'd only give me a chance. I am hard to love, and I know it, and all I want is for her to love me anyway. Don't I deserve for a woman like her to love me?_

_No I don't, and I know it. I don't deserve a love like the love I want from her, and I don't deserve her. Quite the opposite, in fact. I deserve the way she hates me. This makes me even more enraged, and I walk to the liquor cabinet, ready to flush my feelings out with more alcohol, but when I open it I notice there's only a bottle with one shot left. Gin. I've apparently finished off most of what was left. How is it possible I drank so much and I'm not dead or in a coma? Whatever. I grab the bottle and suck down the last bit of booze, and now that I have nothing to block out my anger I can't deal with it, and I throw the bottle against the wall, too. The pieces fall to the ground, and what little liquid remained inside drips down the wall in a slow wet trail of stinking gin. I pick up another bottle that was lying on the floor near the cabinet, one I threw on the ground just now rifling through and looking for more. That bottle had tequila in it. I don't even like tequila, yet somehow I drank all of it. Fuck it. I toss that one at the wall, too, and I laugh as it shatters._

_Still in a rage, I look around the living room for more shit to destroy, because now that I have no alcohol I have nothing subduing me and my pangs of rage. I have to break things. I have to throw things. Nothing else is gonna make me feel better now. I'm gonna ransack this entire god damn place, I don't care if we have to sleep in it tonight. The sofa looks like it could be a good outlet, haha. I run toward it, bum rush it in fact, and flip it the fuck over on its back. It doesn't go over the first time, but when it does it lands with a loud angry thud. I scream at the top of my lungs: a loud, dreadful and rageful bellow that I don't give a fuck if anyone heard. I'm so beyond the point of caring what anyone thinks of me or my fucking screaming. I turn my attention onto the potted plant by the doorway to the bedroom, and I grab the plant right out of the pot. Dirt leaks everywhere as the pot falls on its side. I tear the plant up, tossing pieces of it this way and that, and I can feel tears of anger and despair forcing themselves from my eyes despite my desperate desire to keep them from coming. Next I grab the large bowl shaped pot the stupid plant was sitting in, and I throw it straight down until it shatters all over the floor._

_On and on I go, carelessly tossing furniture or hurling it hard into the floor or the walls. The television cord is yanked from the wall with a frenzied furor, the way I want to fucking tear David's throat from his body, and the way I want to take and claim Maisie. I'm lost in a vortex of frenzy. It's completely possessed me, and I'm out of control. Nothing's stopping me from ransacking the entire place, and so I don't fucking stop for a second until the whole damn thing is a pile of shit strewn about everywhere. You've no idea of the adrenaline that's coursing through my entire body like frigid ice that's gonna shatter me if I don't throw and break shit. I can't think for my bloody self, damn it_

_Fuck you both. I adore you, Maisie. I love and crave every bit of you inside and out, and when you are so kind and so close to me it kills me. Have the decency to leave me alone so I can go without being tortured by the harsh, scorching reality that I'll never have you. Damn it, Maisie, damn it. I need you. I fucking need you, and you get so close but you always slip away from me just before I can wrap you in my arms and embrace you until you tire of me. Why won't you love me? I need your love like I need to breathe, and I feel it in my veins like needles when you reject me. Damn it. Fuck. I want to hate you so bad because of how you torture me with your smiles, your kindness, your touch, the smell of your silky chestnut hair, your warm but secretly fierce eyes, and the way you laugh. Fuck. I hate how you are just within my grasp, but you won't ever let me grab you. God, I can't stand it, and I feel so desperate to fucking hate you, but I adore you too much, and I couldn't ever begin to understand how. You are my stars. You are my princess and my sweet lamb, and I can't die without knowing how it would be to feel loved by you._

_I collapse onto the floor in a heap, dislocating my hip when I crash into the hardwood floor with an impact so excruciating and disastrous that I cry out in agony. I'm beyond all help._

_I'm lying prone, unable to move, and I can feel the world spinning around me. I'm surrounded by trash and broken furniture and dirt on all sides. It's a shit hole. I've turned my room into a shit hole. I've turned the entire cabin into a shit hole, all except for her bedroom. I didn't touch Maisie's bedroom._

_I didn't even think about David and Maisie coming back and finding all this, but here they are. Maisie gasps, and I can hear her running toward me. What the fuck? I beg you to please leave me be. I can't live through your care and kindness. It'll kill me._

_"Maisie, go outside. You've already given this dumb drunk enough of your kindness. Go see Nick and Amelia, okay? I'll take care of this."_

_"No, David. No, don't send her away." I'm begging, but he won't relent._

_"Maisie, just go. You don't owe him anything else."_

_She leaves just as I look up to find her, and as she walks out the door I let out a wail not unlike the wail I let out before. With my hand stretched out toward the door I'm sobbing now, and David sits down next to me. He places his hand on my shoulder._

_"What's going on with you, mate? You're an absolute mess the past few days. You're gonna have to pay for this, you know. I'm not covering it, and neither is Maisie."_

_"Leave me the bloody hell alone, David."_

_"Alright, I guess you don't need any help cleaning up this mess."_

_He gets up to leave, and I yelp again, because I am going to need help, especially since I can barely fucking move after all that. How the fuck are we going to clean it up by ourselves?_

_"I don't think we...I don't think we can do all this ourselves. Maybe we should ask the others for help."_

_David glares at me, and when I manage to stand up after a few seconds of trying and failing miserably he stands up and charges at me and knocks me into a wall. His fist collides with the wall right next to my face, and I shudder. His eyes are frigid, jagged blocks of ice. He's never looked at me this way, and I'm terrified. They say you fight or flee in these types of situations, but I'm frozen. I'm afraid if I move this nutter will put his fist through my face next, and not only the wall. I can't meet his eyes: I'm too ashamed. I know what I've done, and I know what I am. I'm a fraud and a complete basket case who's destroyed a house and assaulted two women in a drunken frenzy._

_"First of all, you've been a fucking sour dick from the second day we were here. Your behaviour at our rehearsals, our gigs, and in our cabin are beyond out of line, Roger, and I am happy to give you more chances, but eventually if it doesn't stop I'm out of here, and I'll take Rick and Nick…" He stops, smiles and then purses his lips and nods his head. Giving me what I deserve. "...and Maisie...with me."_

_"Hey, David, fuck you!" I scream as I lean closer to his face. It was like a rapid fire shot from a gun; I couldn't stop it and it came out faster than lightning. David's fists rush to my collar and he grabs me by my shirt and fucking lifts me off the ground. I'm definitely getting in shape after this._

_"Listen, you venomous fuck. That girl has been through enough shit in less than five years, and you aren't going to make a pattern out of manipulating her into being fucking intimate with you. That's right, Roger, I'm onto you, and I know what you're about, and what you are, and I know the fucking game you're playing. You leave Maisie be, and don't you fucking put her through anything like that again. You're an entitled adolescent and I'm not going to put up with it forever. The fucking drinking needs to stop. Go see someone. Do what you have to do. But it stops. Tonight." David releases me, I hit the ground in a way that stings the nerves in my bare feet and I knock the back of my head against the wall. "I'm going to tell Maisie to sleep on the sofa at Nick's, and we're going to clean this hellhole up. You start, and go fast. I wanna go to bed."_

_With one more icy glare David turns around and storms off, slamming the door as he leaves. I almost hit him. Almost. Where did I summon the wherewithal to calm down?_

_I'm over all of this. What the fuck am I going to do? I just want to go to bed._


	28. Rosemary - Cambridge, April 2006 - Rosemary's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosemary broods about how things have strayed from her original plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys just wanted to say I was uncomfortable with some of Cora's language upon reading the chapter last week again after I posted it. If you'll bear with me I've gone and edited that chapter so the language is a little less cringey/bordering on racist and antisemitic. I'll post it a little later if anyone wants to take a look.

This was supposed to be taken care of by now. I was supposed to have already been putting it all behind me and moving on to Majorca and no more worries with her spoiled arse sitting behind bars, but yet here we are, the day before the blasted wedding and the day I'm supposed to host her 'bachelorette party'. We'll apparently be joined by Cora Harlowe, I learned last week. What a delight, I said, quite a treat, indeed. I hope my utter sarcasm is apparent, although I suspect you didn't think for a second that Cora Harlow and I would get along. She's a total airhead with a complete lack of personality, if I remember correctly. Not worth a damn for anything but her looks, which I'm sure have faded by now. Especially since she walked out on Roger Waters and I'm sure got virtually nothing in the divorce. He had to have made her sign a prenuptial agreement: he was always a smart one, scoundrel though he is. 

How did I ever let it get this far? I should have been firm with Roger and told him that no, he was absolutely not allowed to invite Maisie Wells to stay at mother's house with him without my supervision. This would have been over much sooner if I'd stood firm on that and insisted on staying with them. They wouldn't have gotten up to any shenanigans with me around, and she'd be on her way back to the States by now if not already there. How could I have been so bloody stupid? We all make mistakes, but this was quite the mistake to make, wasn't it? Damn it. What am I supposed to do now? Nothing I've tried has worked. If I thought that perhaps it would have been easier to sow discord between them, I'd have tried that already, but it isn't possible. I don't know what kind of power she holds over my brother, but I don't like it one bit, and I don't trust it. If I had even tried to say one negative word of her Roger would have stormed right out of my house and ridden home, or asked me to leave. Even if she could handle the heat of my scorn, he cannot, and thus it wouldn't have been worth it. And she...well, she knows him like none ever have, and she'd spot me in a lie quicker than I could finish telling it. 

How is that fucking possible, anyway, that she would know my brother better than me? Something between them makes them seem like one being, and it couldn't be more disgusting than it is if someone had written it. I hate them so much for being so in love. 

Damn it, when will it be my turn?

Not to fall in love. I've had that, and it wasn't really all they said it would be. Perhaps it was about half as good as I thought it would be, and that's being rather generous if I do say so myself. I found myself really quite bored by it all after about six months once the chasing games were over, the mist faded, and I discovered that the caliber of man I'd attracted for marriage was rather a disappointment. I'd hoped perhaps I could have done a bit better than a vacuum cleaner salesman. Oh, but that was before I found all the savings. After that I was a happy housewife until it no longer suited me.

Maisie doesn't get bored in long relationships (as she'll have anyone know, it seems), and she knew she'd never have an opportunity to get bored with my brother anyway. I bet you that's why she did this: easy money, and she won't have to put up with him for long. No, I know the stupid bint isn't in this for the money, though, because she's got her own bleeding money...more than enough of it, in fact, and it's not all hers although she made herself quite a good living (I had my son run a full check on her, including all of her assets). She's in this for real, and of this I am 100% certain, and I simply cannot decide whether I am sick and green with envy or whether it absolutely disgusts me. I despise them for it, though.

No, when I ask when it will be my turn I simply mean when will it be my turn for anything? Love, money, fame, popularity, notoriety, respect, recognition...anything? I was a singer, too, damn it. I was creative, too. No one ever paid any attention to my singing or my painting. No one fell in love with me: I had to chase my lousy husband down myself, or he wouldn’t have looked twice at me. Cora always had so many friends, and I don’t remember having one. And still, to this day, I only have my son and my brother. Any notoriety or respect I had she stole from me after moving in with him.

But I asked her to, didn’t I? 

That’s what you’re thinking, right? 

Well, of course I did. I didn’t have a choice, and I figured that out as soon as I saw the way they reacted to one another. I realised very quickly that I had to shift my focus. My mistake wasn’t giving my blessing for the wedding: no, my mistake was ever letting her stay in that house with him in the first place without me there. Once I slipped and allowed her to stay there without me I had to come up with a new plan, and I knew it. So that’s where I am now. 

So perhaps I should welcome the wedding. Maybe I should be excited for it, even. True, I want the money, and I’ve been trying very hard to speed things up while I’m still next of kin, but it’s not working, and now I’m quite literally down to the wire. I’ve got to change my plan. Tonight I have one last chance to drive her off, and if I can’t do that, I’ve got to start to change my focus, that’s all. Just a change of focus. Not a big deal, and not a totally insurmountable obstacle. Only a fool would let 20 years of suffering and planning fall apart over a simple change of focus. I asked my son to push for the stripper thinking Maisie would get angry, hoping to try to sow some discord between them, but she gave her blessing. It was my brother that got angry that my son even asked. That idea went over like a lead balloon, as you can see. So after that I started to think: ‘if I can’t get rid of her, and nothing’s working, I’ll just lie low and keep doing what I’ve been doing, and eventually I’ll be standing on the steps of a courthouse, dabbing crocodile tears in my eyes with a tissue, making a statement to the press about how relieved my family is to see my beloved brother’s killer brought to justice.

And then, of course, I’ll be on my way to Majorca and no more worries.


	29. Syd - Cambridge, 1969 - John's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: As you can imagine this chapter has some material that may be sensitive to the mentally ill.
> 
> Syd lives through his own trauma at the hellhole he's staying in.

_I've hidden in a cupboard so these demons that live here won't bother me. They always bother me, you know, and even when they're not saying anything to me I know they're laughing at me in there. I can hear them laughing and talking about me in the other room, and they're drunk and sloppy and they smell terrible like a pile of dog shite that's been left to rot for a week in the hot sun. All of them, every single one, even the girl who's with them, and she tries to be nice to me sometimes but I still hate her just like I hate all people, especially these ones. My friend from school tries to treat me well, but I don't trust him. I think he's able to read my thoughts, and he’s sharing what he hears with those other people who are so mean, but he might also be telling the government, and for that reason if I'm not hiding in my room I’m hiding in this cupboard whenever I'm here. I think I even fell asleep in here before, and haven't left yet because it's very comfortable, but also I simply do not trust not one of them, not even my friend - I think I told you that, didn't I? It's hard to keep up with myself sometimes. Sometimes it feels like my mind is all shattered into pieces, and I'm not sure what goes where. You know, I really do think that they can hear what I'm thinking. That must be why they always laugh at me._

_Estella: It's alright, dear. You know they can't hear us if you hide in here. It'll be alright. They can't get you here._

_You really think so?_

_Estella: Oh, I know so, dear. It wouldn't surprise me if they had no idea you were even in here. They probably think you're out wandering._

_Stuart: They know he's in here. Stop lying to the boy... you'll do him no good. You'll do us no good, either. If he goes down we all go down._

_Estella: Why, I'm only trying to comfort him. He's sensitive, he is, you know that._

_Stuart: It's because he's so fragile that we can't lie to him. Gotta toughen him up._

_Stop it, both of you! Let me be, please! This is already so hard without your obnoxious bickering. I don't need you to lie to me! If they can hear what I'm thinking you need to tell me! I can barely think straight on my own anymore, never mind having to do all the thinking for you lot as well. I'm so alone, though, and now you're all I have, so please don't go away. Just be quiet awhile is all. I just want you to be a bit quieter for awhile so I have time to figure things out. What do I need to figure out? I forget what I had to figure out. I know I came in here intending to figure something out, but what could it be? Was I trying to figure out the circumference of the Earth? Julius, what's the circumference of the Earth?_

_Julius: I can't tell you that, but did you know that sleeping through the summer is called estivation?_

_A lot of good that fact does me, then. Why isn't the information you have ever relevant to what I need? If I don't figure this out I'm going to crack. The world rests on my shoulders, Julius, don't you know? Don't you know I have to find the answer? I can't get my Maisie back until I figure out the answer to whatever it is I needed to know, whatever question it was that I have to answer. Someone wants something from me, and I'll be damned if I give it to them. Damned, don't you know? I'll be bloody damned if anything gets in my way. I have to find her. She's gone, you see, and I have to find her. I have to find her before she disappears into a cloud of thin air and I can't ever get her back. Do you think she misses me? I miss her. I miss her all the time. I'm so lost and afraid. I don't want to be shut up in this cupboard, but I don't have a choice. There's no one here to protect me, and these beasts that are in the sitting room are smoking all my grass and taking all my acid and destroying my things and stealing my money and my clothing, and who knows what they’ll do to me if I don’t hide from them._

_Stuart: There's no use lying to you. You said not to lie to you, and so I'll be honest: you can't ever get her back. You didn't protect her, and now she's gone away. You can't have her back. You might as well give up._

_Estella: Oh, don't tell him that. Now, dear, don't you listen to that negative Nancy over there. You know never to give up on true love. And Maisie is your true love, right?_

_Of course she is. She's my only one. I need to get her back: I won't believe that she'll never come back to me. I won't. I refuse._

_For the life of me I cannot remember what it is I came in here to think about. It couldn't be the circumference of the Earth because Maisie doesn't care about that. It has to be something she cares about. What does she care about?_

_The Shadow: Not you, you stupid failure._

_Wait a minute. Who are you? You don't normally come here. In fact, I don't think I remember speaking to you ever. Do any of you know who he is?_

_Estella: I haven't the faintest, dear._

_Stuart: Nor I. That's not my preferred way of dealing with you._

_Julius: I don't know who that is, but did you know that bats always turn left when exiting a cave?_

_You're of no help, not one of you. I don't like this new friend, if they're even a friend. That was very scary. I hope he goes away. I don't like it when people are mean._

_The Shadow: I'm not your friend, you nutter. I wouldn't be your friend if you paid me. You're far too insane to have any friends. The one who lives here is getting ready to get rid of you at any moment, trust and believe that._

_You're so mean. Why? I've done nothing to you. I can't help what's happening to me...no one will be quiet and I can't stop even for a second to concentrate on what I need to figure out to get her back. Please. I can’t help it. I don’t know why I have all of you talking to me when I never did before._

_The Shadow: It doesn't matter who I am._

_It matters to me! I need to know who I'm talking to. You could be anyone. You could be out to get me. You could be the one who's sharing all my thoughts with those people in there and with the government. I have to know who you are or I simply cannot trust you or take anything you say as the truth._

_The Shadow: I don't care if you think what I say is true because the facts don't care about your feelings, and that's what I am. I'm the facts._

_You aren't. I'm not what you say I am._

_The Shadow: You are everything I say you are, and more. And they can hear your thoughts, but it's not because of me. You're simply thinking that loudly. You're just a mess, you spastic waste._

_You stop that. I am not! I am just trying to figure out how to get my love back. That's all I want. I just want her back. She must be so lonely without me. She's probably lost and scared just like I am, and I have to find her and I have to get her back. Please don't be mean. We can help each other._

_The Shadow: You locked her up and drove her off, you lunatic._

_I know that's...but she has to come back. She knows I wasn't meaning to hurt her. She has to. No one knows me like she does. She must be looking for me now, and because you won't shut up I can't figure out how to get to her._

_The Shadow: She knows, but she doesn't care. She doesn't care about you at all anymore, you loony. You ruined it all...all of her feelings for you, you destroyed them, and now she hates you. She's with him now, and she's happy without you, and she doesn’t miss you one bit. You don't mean anything to her anymore._

_Please stop. Please stop. Stop: I can't bear it. I simply cannot bear it, do you understand me? Why are you so cross with me? I've done nothing at all to you...why, I don't even know your name or where you're from. I don't even know anything about you, how could I have done anything wrong to you?_

_The Shadow: You're a loony and a waste of life. You should probably just kill yourself. Everyone would be a lot better off. Where's all your friends, famous Syd Barrett? Where's Roger Waters, who told you how much he loved you? Where's your little sister? Where's your blasted mother? Everyone wants you dead and gone. It's obvious. If anyone cared at all they'd be here, but they're not here, are they?_

_Estella: That's quite enough now! You don't need to talk to him that way... he's in enough pain as it is. Roger, my poor dear. Don't you listen to a word that comes out of his silly mouth. You are so loved, Roger, by Roger Waters, Maisie, your mother and your sister and so many others. Don't you listen to him._

_Stuart: That's beyond anything that we need to worry about. We need to get you out of this cupboard now. That's all we have to worry about. As for you, newcomer, we don't talk to Roger that way._

_The Shadow: Well, I do. I'll say whatever I please. Someone has to be straight with him._

_I'm beating my head with my hands so you'll all shut up now, can you feel it? I can't stop fucking beating it and it hurts, damn you! I want it to stop! Stop it, all of you! Stop it! You fucking demons, won't you leave me be? I'm going to bash my own bloody head in to get rid of you, I swear I will!_

_The Shadow: Do it, Syd. Go on, bash your head in. Bash it right the bloody fuck in. I wanna see your brains on the floor, you shriveling cunt._

_“LEAVE ME BE, DAMN IT!! LEAVE ME BE!!!”_

_I’m screaming now. Damn it. You’ve made me scream. Now they can most surely hear me in there, and they’re laughing like terrible, maniacal hyenas out there. They’re laughing at me for sure now! Look what you’ve done, you fools! Look what you’ve done with all your bickering, and you: you with your threatening and your meanness! Now they know I’m here, and they’re going to hurt me, and no one can protect me because you made me drive away the only person who ever did._

_They’re coming this way, don’t you hear them? I can hear them clear as day. Listen to them. They’re making fun of me in there, and they’re on the way in here to come beat me up, I know it. You’ve put me in such danger with all your noise. Now look at me. I’m about to be beaten to a bloody pulp because of you!_

_“Come on out of there eh, ya bloody spastic? What are you doing hiding in the cupboard?”_

_“You talking to yourself in there, loony?”_

_“Leave me be, both of you. I want to be alone.”_

_“Sure doesn’t sound like you want to be alone, does it? You’re in there mumbling to yourself like a lunatic.”_

_“He is a bloody lunatic, you know,” says the brother of my friend I'm living with. His voice is like a snotty little toddler who's just learnt to be mean to get what he wants. What a terrible little sniveling prick he is. I hate him, you know. Of all of them I hate this one the absolute most. He's focused on me, he's always staring at me and laughing at me. He's listening to everything I think. I don't know why, but he doesn't like me. It isn't even that, perhaps he wants to feed on me._

_“My brother says he got thrown out his band for being a nutter, yeah. He got left behind when they left to tour America.”_

_“No way. What a fucking shame. You hear that, loony? We know all about how you fucked your life up.”_

_They’re banging on the doors. Why are they doing this to me? I can’t stand it. I’m so afraid. Why can't Maisie come to find me? I'm alone, and I'm afraid, and I don't want to be here anymore._

_“Please stop, all of you,” I whimper at them as they go on banging on the door and laughing at me._

_They won’t stop. They keep banging on the door and laughing. I feel like I can’t get out. If I open the door they might suck out my soul through my eyes. I know they can do that. I’ve seen them do it to each other. I’ve heard them talk about doing it to each other and to others, too. They’re demons. Vampires. Dark creatures of the night with no souls, so they feast upon the souls of others, and my soul is special. It’s different. My soul, and Maisie’s soul, are different from other people’s. I told you before that we aren’t people, we’re sprites. That’s why our souls are so irresistible to these types, to these vampires like the ones that live here. It’s because we’re sprites, we’re not of this plane, and our energy is delicious. It’s like acid to those types, you know. They get addicted to it. They can’t get enough of it. I’ve known it since I moved in here that they want to feast on me, and that’s why they stay here all day when I’m here. They’re just waiting for me to come out. Thank god Maisie isn’t anywhere near here. They’d have already gotten to her._

_Stuart: Guess you’d better stay locked in here for now, then. That way they can’t get at you. We’ll figure all this out. Once they’ve tired of this we’ll go out wandering._

_Estella: That sounds lovely! Where should we wander to?_

_Where do you think Maisie is? That’s where I want to go. I have to find her. I have to talk to her. If I can just see her I know she’ll let me talk to her. She’ll hear me. I know she will. I know. I KNOW._

_“I heard he beat up his girlfriend real bad too. I only know that cos he babbles about her to himself all the time and I asked me brother about it. Said he beat her up real bad and some other guy dragged her off.”_

_No. No, you don’t get to talk about Maisie at all. Not at all, you dumb prick. You keep her out of your mouth, do you understand? Oh, I’m so angry it’s boiling my guts! I want to punch a hole in his face! How dare he say anything about her?_

_The Shadow: Are you really going to let him say that about her? Are you going to let him talk about her at all without a fight? You’re more of a pussy than I thought you were, then, and I thought you were quite a pussy._

_What can I do? I can’t stop them. They’re vampires. They’ll feast on me._

_The Shadow: So you don’t care about her, then? Because that’s what you’re telling me right now, that you don’t care about Maisie. If you’re just going to let that man sit there and talk about her that way …_

_I do care about her. You know how I care for her. She is the only one I’ve ever loved, and she’s the only one that’s ever really loved me, and she’d still be here if it weren’t for David. We are meant to be together. You know I care about her…_

_The Shadow: Then get out there and stand up for her. He said you hurt her, too, did you hear that? He said you beat Maisie up real bad. What does that make you feel? Does that make you angry? Because it should. Even if you wanted to hurt Maisie you couldn’t because you couldn’t hurt a fly, you pussy._

_I’m not a pussy. I never laid a finger on her. I only protected her. She knows that. She has to know that. I was only protecting her because ...because there’s…I would never, ever hurt my Maisie, and he is a right pig for ever even implying that I would!_

_The Shadow: Then prove it. Prove it to him that you can’t be fucked with, prove it to yourself and prove it to me, you baby. Prove it to me that you’re any kind of man and you’re capable of standing up for yourself and for the woman you think you deserve._

_They’re laughing even harder at me because I’ve started screaming in here hoping to scare them off, but they’re not scared. They’re laughing like banshees or something, like they've all gone completely mad. They think it’s even funnier for me to be in here alone and afraid. They think it’s so funny because they know if I come out they can feast on me and I’ll be done for, and then they’ll be able to find her...and they’ll feast on her too. I can’t let it happen. I have to get out of here. I have to find her. I have to talk to her. She’ll come back and we can go back to our house and it’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine. We’ll be together, but I just have to find her._

_The Shadow: You have to do more than that. You’ve got to hit him right in the face. Hit the one that’s doing all this talking. If you can’t hit him you won’t find Maisie. In fact, I won’t let any of them give you any clues as to where she is if you don’t hit him, so you better go and hit him._

_Oh, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I’m not that type. I don’t hit people. Please don’t make me hit him. Let me talk to my friends. Why are you doing this to me? They’re all so very nice to me, why are you so mean? I’ve done nothing to you to make you be so mean to me this way, so you cut it out. Just let my friends come out and help me find Maisie, please!_

_The Shadow: You better hit him, or you’ll never talk to your friends or see Maisie again. All you’ll have is me, and I’ll make your life a living hell, so you better get out of this closet and go punch his face in just like you said you would, you pussy._

_I don’t even know how to hit someone. Oh, they’re laughing more at me. They’re howling and calling me names. Every time you say something to me it makes me scream at you, and that makes them laugh harder, harder, harder and harder! They’re talking about locking me in! If I don’t burst out of here now they’ll lock me in again like they did last week._

_The Shadow: Then get out of here and go punch his lights out, you dumb pussy. Come on. Get on out of here and go and hit him right in his stupid face. Show me that you’re not the weak, fragile little girl I think you are._

_Fine! I’ll do it! I’ll do it if you promise me you’ll let my friends back out. Please, promise quickly. I can hear him coming closer. His hand is on the knob to lock the door. Please don’t let him lock me in again. I...I barely made it last time. Please, please let them come back and talk to me right now and I’ll get out and I’ll hit him right in the face like I promised. Please?_

_Stuart: It’s okay, Roger. You can talk to us again if you just do as he says._

_Estella: I’m here, sweet boy. Don’t worry. Just do as he says. That’s all you have to do, you just have to go out there and hit the one boy who’s about to lock the door, and then you can talk to us._

_I won’t believe you until I can talk to Julius, too._

_Julius: Did you know that a queen bee uses her stinger only to sting another queen bee?_

_Okay. I’ll do it. Oh, my goodness, he’s turning the knob. I’m going to kick the door open. Oh, would you look at that? As soon as I kicked the door open he backed off. Do I still have to hit him? He looks afraid. He looks like he might run away now. Maybe I don’t have to hit him after all._

_The Shadow: No, you still have to hit him. I’ll send them away again. I just did it now, do you think I can’t do it again? I can do it again, I promise you, and I will. I laugh at your pain, you dumb coward._

_But he looks so afraid…_

_The Shadow: Do it! Hit him or you’ll never speak to your friends again! Do it, you pussy!_

_So I rush over to him. His name is Tim, the stupid cunt who was making fun of me. He’s my friend’s younger brother, so I try to keep my distance, but I don’t care anymore. All that matters is finding Maisie, and I need my friends to help me find her, so I have to do as he says. I have to hit Tim, and if we are being honest with one another I’m really not that angry about having to do it._

_I rush to him, and the air and everything around us freezes as I ball my hand into a fist and squeeze my eyes shut as it collides with his ugly troll face. He screams like he's being murdered, and I can feel his warm blood on my knuckles. His nose is bleeding, and the blood is dripping down over his mouth and down his chin while he stares at me in shock. He can’t believe I’ve just done this, either. None of them can. I look around, and they’re all staring, wide eyed, unsure how to react. They’re all so terribly afraid of me now that maybe they’ll actually leave me alone. I’ve never fought back before. I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve always just sat by and let people hurt me, but now...but now I know that if I do this they’ll stop. Good. I look around at each of them, and I hope I look as fierce as I’m trying to. With my luck I look like a baby lion trying to roar for the first time._

_“You all better fuck off or you’re next! That’s a promise! And you stay out of of my things, and stop trying to lock me in the cupboard, or next time it’s going to be worse! Next time I’ll make your mouth bleed, too! Maybe I’ll knock your fucking teeth out, you fucking shithead!”_

_They all run off, and I couldn’t be more thankful. Now I’m free to wander as I see fit, and when I come back, maybe they’ll think twice about fucking with me. Looks like one of Tim’s friends took him to the loo to get his face washed off. Good. He deserved a lot more than that bloody nose I gave him. In fact, I showed restraint when I did nothing but make his nose bleed. A lot of other people might have gone farther than I did, is that right?_

_Estella: A lot of people might have killed him, dear. You did very well. I’m so proud of you, Roger. You really are a good boy. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re anything but kind and brave and good._

_Stuart: You didn’t kill him, and that’s the important thing. But I still don’t think you can get Maisie back._

_Estella: Yes he can get her back. Don’t you listen to him. He doesn’t know a thing, You can get her back, all you have to do is find her and tell her the truth. Tell her you were trying to protect her, but that you won’t do it again. Tell her things are different now, and that if she comes back you’ll show her how you’ve changed._

_Stuart: But she’s still in danger. She’s still being hunted. Things haven’t changed. If she came back he’d only have to do the same thing. He can’t be with her until the serpent leaves her alone, and who knows when that will be?_

_I’ll find a way to protect her that doesn’t involve hiding her away. Believe me, I won’t let anything take her away from me ever again, but I also won’t hurt her anymore. I’m just going to find her and wait for her to come and talk to me. I promise you I won’t hurt her or let anything happen to her._

_Stuart: It has nothing to do with you. The serpent already has her. He’s following her all the time, waiting for his moment to strike at her. You already failed._

_Estella: Then he shall have no real problem finding her and convincing her to come back. If she’s in danger anyway there’s no reason for him to stay away. You just don’t want him to be happy, is all._

_Where do you think she is? I have to find her. I have to know where she is. I just want to see her. I know if I can just talk to her she’ll… she’ll … she’ll come back. I know it. I just know it. Where do you think she is?_

_Estella: What does your heart tell you?_

_My heart tells me that Maisie is at David’s house. She left with him, and she’s probably still with him. I can’t even bear to think...you don’t think that he...that he’s going to try to steal her heart away, do you? Do you really think he’d hurt me that way, by stealing my girl?_

_Estella: I think if you don’t go and find her anything is liable to happen, dear one. Anything. Including David stealing her heart away. It would be quite easy for him to do so, wouldn’t it?_

_Yes, I think it would. He’s very beautiful, David. I had quite a crush on him back in the day when we were coming up learning to play guitar together, but I was too scared to tell him. It went away rather quickly, but I think if he had tried I wouldn’t have been able to resist him either. Oh, no. I do have to say something,and fast, because if he tries to steal her heart away he will steal it without any problem, and then I’ll lose her forever…_

_I have to go to David’s, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go there, and I’m going to talk to Maisie, and then she’ll come home. It’s brilliant. But first I have to figure out how to get to David’s house. That’s it! That’s what I had to figure out: how to get to David’s house! Oh, thank goodness. What a shame things had to happen the way they did in order for me to be able to remember that!_


	30. Maisie - Cambridge, April 2006 - Syd and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and Syd spend some time together before their bachelor and bachelorette parties.

"Why can't you stay here tonight? I don't want to have to sleep without you ever again," Syd whispers in my ear, and I can’t help but giggle as his lips tickle my earlobe. He pulls away from me as I wince, but it’s nice… a good wince … a ‘this tickles’ wince, and then smiles as he tucks my hair behind my ear. The light in his eyes reflects into mine, and I can see every bit of love, joy and peace that lives inside of them and that I have come to claim as my own. I wonder what he sees in my eyes when he stares into them like that. I wonder if he sees as much love in my eyes as I see in his, and I wonder if he knows that what he suspects could be love actually is. I wonder if he’d be surprised...if he could come into my head and feel all of the beautiful, pure, brand new but same old feelings he makes me feel, would he be surprised, or would he realize that he’d always known it, and that I was the one who forgot? Every day it gets more and more difficult not to tell him how much I love him. With every bone in my body I have to resist the fierce desire to tell him that I'm breathless over him, that I would cross an ocean just to make him happy, and that I would take 10 years off of my life to give him 10 more. It's a feeling I never thought I'd feel again, one I only ever had with Syd before: oneness.

"Because," I say as I let my hands wander around his smiling face and feel every small detail in his rough, bumpy skin that gets caught in the lines of my fingertips, "it's bad luck for us to spend the night before our wedding together. That, and your sister really, really wants to have this party."

The lamplight of our living room is dim and warm, the air outside that's blowing in through the screen of the open window is dewy and almost warm, and the scented candles I lit on the coffee table fill the room with a freshly laundered clothing smell. We had to do a deep cleaning before Ian and Syd's friends come tonight because we've admittedly let the house go a bit lately. We've been too busy enjoying one another's company. Lately we haven’t been going on as many walks as we did, but it comes and goes, I’ve noticed. Some days Syd barely wants to leave the house, but some days he’d rather be anywhere else but here, and lately we’ve been in a ‘barely wanting to leave the house’ stage.

"Ian really wanted me to have this party, too. All I wanted to do was have Kathy here, or go to see her at her shop. I didn't want all these lazy blokes over here."

He laughs a deep belly laugh and shakes his head, but I'm secretly glad that his male friends are coming over. I adore my Syd the way he is, but he is around a lot of women all the time. Am I maybe being old fashioned? It's possible. I suspect that my baby doesn't really understand the whole 'gender' thing, anyway…some days he really loves to wear his black eyeliner still, and there are days where he jokes that he’d like to wear a dress (I suspect this isn’t a joke because there’s something about the way his voice almost drops to a whisper when he cracks these jokes...usually when I’m out at the boutique and he’s looking at one particular dress). Sometimes I have to ask him to put on more than his boxers and he thinks nothing of scratching himself while I’m in the room (not to mention how he’s inclined to keep the house on his own), and that only ever happened twice before I reminded him that I didn’t like it. So, I’m pretty sure that Syd’s gender is on a spectrum, and not really one or the other, and maybe he is the way he is because that’s who he’s always been, and not because of the company he keeps.

I love Kathy, by the way, and have enjoyed getting to know her and spend some time in her coffee shop when Syd goes to see Rosemary (though, if there’s another stunt like that one day last month I don’t know if I’m comfortable with him going over there without me). It's a sweet little place; I've actually been itching to invite Cora to have coffee with me there and meet Kathy, as well. She's a lovely, short (shorter than me!), very plump pumpkin of a woman with a light blonde bob, the friendliest smile and a real eye for quaint decor. 

"You're going to have a wonderful time with your friends, you know. I thought Ian should've let you be with Kathy if that's what you wanted, too, but he insisted. Gentlemen only."

"What are you and Rosemary doing?"

To tell you the truth, Cora never told me what we are doing, so as far as I know we really are only just going to stay in at Rose's and do nothing. Ugh. I hope not. That would be admittedly more than a little dreadful, if only because Rose was there, and her house kind of sucks. Sorry. It just does. She’s the kind of woman that puts decorative cat plates on her wall and has that painting of the three dogs playing cards. She has shag carpeting and animal statues and it’s just so grandmotherly I can taste the Werther’s Originals before I see them in the bowl on the secretary under the mirror in the ‘parlor’. 

"Well, as far as I know, I'm meeting Cora and her girlfriend Judy at Rose's house, and we're just going to stay in for the evening. It won't be much different than what you're doing here, I think, except we’ll be drinking tea, and not beer."

Syd was really apprehensive about drinking because he knows I don’t really like it. In fact, I had to sit him down and explain to him that just because I don’t like to drink it doesn’t mean that he has to stop drinking. In fact, I encouraged him to enjoy a little alcohol, but we also talked about pacing himself and making sure he ate enough. I don’t ever really drink anything but wine, and never really did. I motion toward the cases of beer I bought for him today, and he shrugs his shoulders with a smile. Then his face falls and I can see that he’s starting to get anxious about having his friends over, and it makes sense because he’s always been nervous about having people in his home, even as far back as I can remember (People think Syd was this social butterfly, but the truth was that while he could socialize among people for awhile, he’d always end up leaving parties - even his own - early to do something more solitary, and often drag me with him...but I didn’t care for the kinds of parties we went to then, either, so I would’ve rather been staring at landscapes anyway.).

"But I want to go. That sounds like so much more fun than this. It'll be much more relaxed over there, won't it?"

His voice is shaky, and he could even cry: Syd also has some trouble with men (but don't we all, hm?), and while he has a few rewarding male friendships, he prefers to keep the company of women. I think masculine energy is difficult for him, personally, because he's so gentle and timid, and he’s so empathetic that anybody with really high frequency energy freaks him out - men tend to have this more than women do,I think. I've seen him talking with his friends, though, and he does turn into a 'guy' then sometimes, and I laugh because he's convinced he doesn't have it in him (even though, as I said before - he can be such a guy sometimes). 

"Baby," I say as I place my hand under his chin and grip it in a playful way, "You're gonna have a great time. You don't want to be in the middle of all that chatter we're going to be doing about clothes and makeup and shampoo and yadda yadda yadda."

"Yeah, I do, Maisie," he whispers with that little bit of forcefulness he gets in his voice when he's feeling very sure of himself. He pulls me into him: a bold move for him... usually he asks for permission. I'm not upset, though. It's okay this time. In fact, I might not need him to ask for permission anymore...I trust him now. I feel my face breaking out into a smile as his arms enfold me, and I close my eyes to focus on the feeling of his heat, his remaining strength, and I convince myself that he's not getting as thin as he is. "That's where you're going to be, and so that's where I want to be, too."

I kiss his cheek softly and rub my nose against his, and we laugh a little bit together. Syd looks around the living room, admiring his work (I did the kitchen and the dining room, and let him focus all his energy on this one). He spends awhile looking at the coffee table, which he dusted and rearranged to make it look a little more organized. I’m proud of the way Syd has started to clean the house without me asking him lately. 

"You can text me all night long if you'd like. How's that?"

"Barely enough," he whispers as he pulls me toward the sofa. I'm tempted to sit down and cuddle with him like I know he wants, but I have to leave in a few minutes. Oh, it's so torturous to have to say no to him. I just want to give him everything he could ever want, which isn't much: just time for us to do this, to sit on the sofa together and cuddle and be together with no interruptions, and no worries. And that's what I want, too, but we get so much of that and it's time for him to spend some time with other people. 

"Oh, baby. Now come on. It's just one night, and you're going to have such a good time with your friends, and then tomorrow…" I grab both sides of his face, which is broken out into a reluctant smile (he was trying to give me puppy eyes, but it looks like I've called his bluff), and I lean in so our foreheads touch. I smile at him and lose myself in the vibrations that are moving between his eyes and mine. "Tomorrow we're getting married…"

“That’s right,” he says, beaming, “How could I have ever forgotten? It’s only my most wonderful dream coming true.” 

I get up on my toes and I kiss Syd on the forehead, and he smiles as his hands wander up my arms into my hair. He bends down and kisses the top of my head, and I look up at him one more time before I grab a hold of my purse and hoist it up onto my shoulder. My keys, attached to a little purple clip on my purse, jingle as it moves, and he lets out another laugh because he always jokes that’s how he knows I’m coming, he can hear my keys jingling. He grabs them from me and jingles them again and starts to hum a tune as he jingles them in a rhythm. 

“Come on,” I whine as I can’t help but laugh at his adorable delay tactics. He’s making up a song right now hoping I’ll stay another few minutes and wait for him to finish it, and I have to. There are not many feelings worse than the one I get when I have to disappoint him. Even if I hadn’t said yes when he’d proposed I don’t think I could have left because to see him so sad would break my heart so much I don’t think it could be repaired. I’d have ended up running right off that plane and back into his arms, I know it. 

He puts an arm around my waist, and with his other hand grabs a hold of mine and sways me a little in time with the tune he’s humming, except he’s dropped my keys now obviously, and so I’ve dropped my purse on the floor, delaying myself by a few more minutes. I’ve got to. We dance together as seriously as if there were actual music playing: an orchestra, maybe, but the orchestra is just our mouths...now I’ve joined in the humming, making up a harmony to go with his melody, and I’ve never been musically talented, but it works. It’s a sweet, flirty melody that I can tell would be a love song if he’d only sit and work on it, but Syd doesn’t want to write songs anymore. 

“Not until you’ve danced with me awhile, Wendy Bird,” he teases with that playful little boy singsong to his voice. When we were young, before Syd got sick, whenever we’d get up to trouble when we were out on the town, and the police would catch us, he’d be able to get out of anything with a smile and a joke. A soft chuckle when they reprimanded us and a witty line could get us out of any tangle. It was like that for him at school too, David had told me once some years later when I had healed a little and was able to talk about Syd again. He can be a funny little devil if you let him. Syd, not David, of course. David was never much of a trickster, although he could tease with the best of them, maybe rivaling Syd, but only on his best day.

"I wouldn't turn that down, Peter." 

"Not ever?"

"Not ever. I wouldn't even have to think about it before I said yes every time."

"You're my favorite person," he murmurs with that beautiful, angelic, earnest voice and with the shy, impish gleam in his eyes that I've always adored. My mind is racing, and my heart is coursing blood through my entire body from my brain to my feet and through all my guts and my heart like lightning. I can't control the way my breathing is becoming more shallow, but I'm not scared or uncomfortable. I'm so overwhelmed with my love of him that I am saturated with oxytocin or something, and I can barely stand it. It's hard to feel things that are so blissful. You can't help but feel overwhelmed and a little frightened by it.

"And you are my favorite person, so I think it works out perfectly that I'm yours, too." 

Still swaying along with him to our song, I slide my hand over his pale, fragile cheeks...I see them starting to cave in a little every few weeks as he loses more and more weight. As much as I want to live in this moment here swaying with him like the old married couple we are to a song we've created together, I can't help but start to see how thin he's getting, how little he wants to go out now, and how much pain he's living with, and I am suddenly stricken with pain that I can't let myself or Syd feel tonight. The worst thing I could do for us would be to fuck up our evening talking about death, and so I'm gonna have to leave now. I'll give it a few more minutes though: after all it's not all the time that we are lucky to find this kind of love.

"Syd," I say a little sternly, but with a smile, "I have to get going to your sister's now. I'd love to stay and dance with you all night, baby, but your friends are going to be here soon, too."

"But I never, ever want you to go, my Maisie."

"And I'd give anything to stay all night, my one." 

"Then do it. We can call this all off. Please?"

"Ah, you deserve a night off to be with your friends, and so do I. It's just for tonight, and tomorrow will be such a beautiful day, right?"

Syd pouts at me, but then he laughs through it, and I know he's only playing. Deep down I think he wants the time with his friends. 

"Okay," he finally relents and lets me go, and I give him one more kiss on the forehead as I sling my purse over my shoulder again and grab my black Ferragamo quilt pattern coat with the faux fur collar just in case I get cold (I'm not always the most sensitive to cold, otherwise I'd just have put it on - it's unseasonably warm tonight). Syd play whines one more time, and so I grab both sides of his face and stare straight into his eyes. It hits me that tonight really is the last night that I'll be a 'single' woman. As of tomorrow morning I'm going to - as hard as it is to believe - have a husband, and I'm lucky enough that it's this kind, pure, and wonderful man.

"After tonight we're going to be together all the time. Unless we have other things to do, you know. But we will be together every other night. Have fun," I say as I stroke his cheek one more time and turn around to leave. I look back at him one more time before I walk out the door, and I'm warmed inside by his smile. I blow him a kiss, and I'm out the door into the evening


	31. David - Cambridge, 1969 - David and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David tries his hardest to perfect a part of Pink Floyd's newest 23 minute song, and it's going well until...

_Here we are, two weeks out from the beautiful disaster that was the trip to St Tropez. The gig? The gig was absolutely bloody phenomenal. I mean, everything was perfect (due in part to Roger drinking through his ornery darkness). So, I've no complaints there: as far as my career goes, it was spectacular. And the 'beautiful' in all the disaster is of course our … Was it a date? What do you think? I like to think it was; it certainly seemed to be a date to me, and perhaps to her, too. Who knows what might have happened if…._

_And that's where we get to the 'disaster' bit, of course: Roger's two consecutive nights of drunken tantrums. The first night I honestly bought it, the whole act he pulled off, but when it happened another night I really had to stop and think: 'is he really so stupid that he thinks it'll work twice?' I thought he couldn't possibly be, but it seems as if he is. That's why I sent her away, but I'm sure you realised that by now; I wasn't about to see her manipulated by him one more time, you know? Not after she had such a good time at the gig, and she looked so nice._

_She really looked good that night, yeah. Once again I think we were lucky that Roger made such a show of himself. Who knows if he hadn't, and we'd come back to an empty cabin...I don't know. I can't control myself forever. I mean, yes, I can, obviously, and will...but I don't want to have to, I guess. Is it wrong I want to have sex with her? Not wrong, I guess. I'm sure it's natural. It doesn't make me a pig. What matters is how I act, and I don't put any pressure on her, so I think I'm okay, really._

_We're working on an album, now, too, and I think it's gonna be a game changer, but he wrote this stupid song. Roger, I mean. He's so transparent, isn't he? 'Scratched by the sands that fell from our love'? Really? Is that his idea of clever? Maybe it's a coincidence, but the song sure isn't about Cora, and it's also certainly not about those poor women he beat up, and it happens to be named after the place where Roger got to play Superman for Maisie for one day. So corny. I hope she doesn't realise he wrote it about her. That would be pretty humiliating for him, wouldn't it?_

_I'm trying to learn the guitar parts for this song we're working on...This crazy long song, you're gonna love it. Everyone will. Maisie does. I heard her singing the melody before, and if I didn't know she'd say no I'd ask her to sing it instead of me and Rick. She's in the living room right now reading, or at least she was when I came in here. She was reading a book by a woman, a big book. I meant to look at the title, but I forgot. I noticed she likes to read, though. I'm not much of a reader if you couldn't guess, but bookworms are my type, anyway...if you couldn't guess._

_And it's going smoothly, the learning the song. It's working, I'm vibing, I'm feeling amazing especially because I know when I'm done she's in there, and we can make dinner, and it'll have been a real nice day. No drama. We've had absolutely no drama since we left France, which is exactly how I wanted it, and how I know she needs it to be. I've been enjoying watching her heal. Sometimes it feels like she gets a little bit better every day: a little bit brighter, a little bit more relaxed, a little bit back to herself. But she grows every day that passes where she doesn't see Syd, or even think about him. She gets stronger. It's like I'm watching a wilted flower whose light had been blocked slowly take shape and begin to bloom all over again. She'd be a lily, wouldn't she? Nah, that's what he used to put in her hair. So I'm gonna give her a different flower...what should it be? I don't know many. Roses are kinda cliche, I think as I slide my finger down the neck of my guitar. This is gonna sound amazing, this song. People are going to go bonkers over it. I'm so excited for this song! It's just as unbelievable a feeling as falling in love - is that what's happening to me?_

_Anyway, yeah...flowers. Funny that on one hand I'm concentrating as hard as I can on playing the guitar, but at the same time I can't stop thinking about what kind of flower she reminds me of. I must be falling in love. She's a daisy, isn't she? At least she is right now, but maybe she won't be forever. Maybe someday she'll be a hardy sunflower, but today she's my delicate daisy. I think I better keep that one filed away for another time. Maybe there'll come a day when I'll be able to buy her some, or something, but I surely won't tie any in her hair. That's probably not the best idea...as much as I'd like to. I remember how pretty she looked with Syd's lilies in her hair. In fact, I think of it pretty often, and fondly. Long, crazy curls falling all over the place, made even more faelike by a wildflower perfectly placed right in the corner of her forehead like a hula girl. What about that time after they'd gotten together, and he'd picked enough to make her a summer fairy type of crown with some grass like the crazy little imp he was then?_

_Man, they were a cute couple._

_I almost sort of feel...as I'm totally just shredding on this at the moment... like I never would have gotten here if Syd hadn't...you know. Cracked. If Syd hadn't shattered into all those pieces I never would have even spoken to Maisie, would I? Nah, probably not. I doubt it. And I couldn't have swiped Maisie away from Syd if I'd tried. For whatever we are or become I'm always going to know that we are only that because she can't be with Syd. If I'd tried to woo her from Roger I could have without a doubt done so, but no: it never would have happened if I'd tried to get her from Syd. They'd have gotten married... undoubtedly._

_But I guess Syd did crack, and I feel somewhat guilty for feeling perhaps as grateful as I do for the opportunity. Is that sick? Maybe that's a little bit off. Yeah, you think, David? Wow. I watch my childhood friend go through a serious mental degradation. I'm horrified for him; I feel so much sympathy for him that it kills me. I don't hate Syd, but I do. I hate him sometimes because he hurt her, but it's not so bad that I'd say I hate him. Only when I find myself getting pissed off about it. When he makes her miserable still in the middle of the night...Those times when she can't sleep because even though she's next to me he's still managing to terrify and paralyse her with sobs...that's when I fucking hate Syd. But when he's not in our lives I don't think much about it._

_Syd has suffered so much, and he still suffers so much... enough that I think the state ought to interfere right now, and it's beyond a shame that they're not. Isn't it? Should someone really be off wandering around by themselves all day if they're in the frame of mind he's in? He's clearly out of his head, and everyone knows it. Everyone who sees him can see him lumbering around, his hair becoming ever more matted and crusty, his eyes hollow and lost in a stare into the void, and mumbling to himself...and no one intervenes. Someone should intervene. Why aren’t I? Should I? I often wonder if I should simply call the authorities on him, but … I’m afraid he’d get hurt. At some point perhaps I’m not going to have a choice. It’s not right, what’s happening to him...living in that shithole being abused by those dumb junkies who steal his shit. No wonder he wants Maisie back...I don’t think anyone else has ever truly loved who Syd is at his core: not of this world. Weird. Off. Vaguely inhuman, ethereal. So brilliant he seems stupid. Maisie adored every single thing about him, and her treatment of him reflected that._

_Oh, this keyboard part is going to be magnificent. I love it. Man, it feels great to shred like this._

_Wait a minute. What the fuck was that?_

_I just heard Maisie's big fat book slam into the rug in the living room, and now she's inhale screamed like Roger does...but she's not trying. She's literally being robbed of breath. I think she's fallen to her knees...I can hear her shriek now, her voice is shaky as she screams my name with this frantic urgency that's made me feel like I need to bolt to her._

_"David... David... David, come here! Please, come here!"_

_Before I can even really think I'm by her side, and just like I thought she'd be, she's curled up in a ball on the floor...the fetal position...the hands over her face and head...legs curled up into her chest. She's hyperventilating. Crying._

_"What is it?," I somehow breathe through my fear._

_"Go...go to the window..."_

_I pat her head as I walk to the window, and my heart stops, and I drops into the pit of my stomach, and I fear I won't swallow the rage I want to inflict upon him fast enough before I go out there and make sure he gets the fuck out of here. Who in the hell does this crazy twat think he is, anyway? Coming around here … staring into the window at her. He’s disgusting. Reprehensible. Doesn’t he even realise what he did?_

_It's Syd, of course, as I’m sure you’ve put together by now. Can you believe this? Fucking Syd is sitting right at the end of our driveway on the rock that's plopped down next to our letterbox. He's perched there like a bird or something: sitting outside and just staring into the window, waiting for her, it seems. His eyes grow wide as he notices me..I can see the colour draining from his face, and there's a spark of fear in his eyes, but he doesn't move. He's waiting out there like a dog without his mistress. That's what he reminds me of...a sad, pathetic dog. What the hell is going on here? Is he going to keep on torturing her? Not if I have anything to say about it._

_"I'm calling Roger, and we're gonna go hide in the studio, okay? Roger will come over and handle it."_

_I take one last look at that fucking evil lunatic out there sitting on that rock like he's done nothing wrong, like he has any business being anywhere near here. He's looking all over for her: this way and that. Where could she be? His eyes perk up at every single sound I imagine he hears, whether it's for real or only in his head...the desperate fool. He ought to be carted off._

_"Why? Why is he here? Why does he want to come after me? It's over, it's over…"_

_She's right: it's supposed to be over. She's supposed to be free of him and his craziness, free of his terrorising her. It takes everything I have not to burst out the door and wring his bloody neck. If I go out there he's mincemeat, and I'm liable to do something I can't turn back from and that Syd can't turn back from. So the only rational thing would be to get his best friend over here. If Maisie won't be coaxing Syd into leaving (and she won't) then the only person fit for the job is Roger._

_I peel Maisie off the floor and we hobble, me with my arm around her, back to my studio where I lead her to the sofa where I had been sitting when she screamed. After I've helped her breathe for a bit I let her lean her head on my shoulder until she can slow her breathing. When she's ready for me to get up I go fetch my telephone off the table and dial Roger's number._

_The phone rings, and rings, and rings and rings until it beeps. He's not answering. Really, Roger? Now, of all times you don't answer your phone? I'm trying him again and again until he answers, damn it._

_Now he answers. After two more rings, asshole._

_"Yeah?"_

_His words are slurred and tired: he's pissed, probably. Too bloody damn bad, I suppose. Nobody can get rid of Syd besides Roger, and no one here calls the police. We're far too private in Cambridge for that._

_"You need to walk over here as soon as possible."_

_Roger pauses and I can imagine him shaking himself awake to hear me out. He's gonna refuse, and I'm going to have to threaten him probably._

_"What the hell is going on around there that I need to come round when I'm drunk?"_

_"Syd is sitting outside our house…" (our house? Is it our house? I rather like the sound of 'our house') "... staring into the window, and Maisie's absolutely terrified, hiding in my studio in a ball. You need to come and collect him right away, and there's no room for argument."_

_Another pause, another time he's shaking himself awake and coming to his senses. I knew telling him Maisie was in distress would get him here. Because, you know... Syd is his best friend._

_"I'll be right over," he says with solemn acceptance. Every time we speak about anything other than music his words to me sound like the iciest, most bitter venom...the kind that turns your veins to ice and paralyses you until you’re deceased._

_"Good," I mimic._

_I hang up on him, and then I head back into the studio to help Maisie calm down. Eventually, with some breathing and some encouragement she brightens up and I'm able to get her down to soft cries by the time Roger knocks on my back door._


	32. Maisie - Cambridge, April 2006 - In the car/Rosemary's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie ponders on her last night as a single woman until she gets to Rosemary's house and the two of them are forced to be alone together until Cora arrives.

The door shuts behind me, and I’m off into the night: my last night as what I just knew I always would be, which is an unmarried woman. Isn’t life crazy? I was so certain by 50 that I’d never be married that I started wearing a ring and telling people I married myself briefly just for the reactions (which were many, and I took the thing off when I got tired of it - it was zirconium, anyway, and I just dropped it off at a thrift store with all my shit when I wanted to buy new clothes). It was hilarious for a little while, but it was always like … I guess it was just a way to laugh about something that I had (and have) very mixed feelings about. 

I throw my purse onto Syd’s seat, close the door of the cute black Lexus I rented and get in. You’d think after having lived in England for so long I’d be able to get used to having everything backwards so quickly, but I still find myself sometimes confused about what side of the car to get in on. Luckily, the whole right side of the road to drive on thing is easy enough. It’s the cars themselves being backwards that can be a bit of a mindfuck. It’s rare that I get to drive myself anywhere these days and choose my own music (sometimes I listen to things that are a bit too modern for Syd’s taste … such as The Sisters Of Mercy, Eurythmics or Culture Club, or Wham! You know. That pop music the teens today listen to like The Rolling Stones or Queen. We’ve agreed on Joni Mitchell and songs from the musical Cats out of my collection (which includes a whole lot more than this), but Syd is so, so picky about music that we usually end up listening to classical music or light jazz - when he plays Stravinsky that’s the best. What should I listen to now that I can listen to anything, now that I’m alone...now that Syd’s not here? Hm…

Well, now thinking about that just makes me feel a little sad, I guess. I guess I’ll put on the Vivaldi that he put in my CD player instead of plugging in my mp3 player, anyway. Why not? It can’t hurt, it’s only a five minute drive to Rose’s anyway. 

But you can get a lot of thinking done in five minutes, too, and you know me - that’s what I do best: think too much! I’ve gotten caught thinking about how weird it feels to be getting married at the age of 58 to my first love. How many people can say they married their first love? I certainly never thought I’d ever be able to say anything like it...yet here I am, going to celebrate my last night to be unmarried. I stopped wanting to get married around the time I left David because I was convinced I’d never love anyone this way after him … you know, enough to marry them, and I was right! I never did … not once. Not until Syd, anyway. 

I wasn’t the marrying kind, anyway, I was convinced: I liked the freedom to move between love affairs too much to give it up and settle down with one person, but now I’d give anything to be with one person even longer than I’ll be able to. I would give up all of the sex with all of the lovers ever just to get one hour more than I’ll be able to get after so many years of happily washing my hands of men who displeased me. It did feel good, though, I admit it. Being able to wash my hands of them after they displeased me, I mean. I just felt for awhile like men had so much power over my life and my decisions, and I decided to take all the power back. I was a player, and I had a really good time. 

Then things changed. 

I got lonely, finally. Maybe like last year or so. That’s when I decided to retire and I just stayed at home with my friends for awhile, and then I tried to start dating. I had been seeing someone (a guy 10 year younger - I definitely had a problem for awhile!), but I called him two weeks after I came here and broke things off. Said I had gotten in contact with an ex from many years ago and had discovered I still had feelings for him, and this guy took it well even though he barely heard from me for two weeks, which made me think maybe he wasn’t gonna end up working out anyway, especially given the fact that I didn’t care enough to contact him either. Thanked me for being honest and never contacted me again. Men over 40 are a whole lot better, and that’s part of why. 

So yeah...wow, I’m going to be married. Really married. Me! To someone other than David, too...and not even just that: the guy I loved before him. The guy I knew I’d marry way back then, too. Sometimes in the past I’d think about that, about how sure I was then that Syd and I would get married. It seemed like a certainty then, and I’d think back on it with bewilderment: how could I have been so stupid? The signs were all there that he wasn’t right in the head, and I just ignored them. I wasn’t stupid though, I was right...I just wasn’t right about how it would end up going. In my early 20s I was convinced Syd was going to get better, and we were going to go on to live a normal life together: marriage and babies. We wanted a baby so bad, and I can tell he still feels regret over not having had his own children. I don’t, but I sometimes feel regret that I wasn’t able to give him any now. It would be worth it to become a mother now just to see him smile at his own child as I delivered it. Actually...would it? No, probably not, but I’ll let myself fantasize for the two or so minutes that I have left of this drive before I have to go into Rosemary’s house. 

Oh, Rosemary...ugh. Actually ...eugh, Rosemary. She’s the worst, isn’t she? The more time goes on the more I just can’t stand her. I don’t even want to go see her tonight, but I’ve got to, don’t I? I wish that Cora, Judy and I could just get together without Rosemary. I’d have gone and stayed in Sussex to be able to get rid of her, but nope, I don’t have the heart to tell her I’d rather not spend time with her, and I also don’t have it in me to put Syd in a position where he has to listen to me bitch about his sister who he loves so much. I think with any other person I’d choose to bitch about it because it really, really is that much of an issue, but he can’t handle the drama and I can’t bear putting him through it, so I say nothing. 

Here’s her ugly pink house with its turquoise shutters and brown door. Looks way too much like a Hansel and Gretel house, or something. She tries way too hard to seem like a harmless little old lady, and sometimes I imagine she’s actually some kind of black widow, or something, and doesn’t tell anybody that while she looks like a sweet old grandma in reality she’s a cold blooded killer. Spooky. I could write a horror novel about that: The Butcher Granny Of Cambridge, or something. Oh, great. Now I’m gonna go through the whole night picturing Rosemary stabbing somebody to death, eyes wide and bulging like a maniac, teeth bared in a crazed grin. Ha, if she were some kind of a psycho killer she might actually be an interesting person to talk to. That’s the irony of the situation. Should I sit out here until Cora gets here, or should I go inside? I’d really rather wait in here, you know. Of course you do. You want me to go inside though, I guess. You probably do, and I probably should. She’s noticed I’m here for sure because she’s the kind of old lady in the neighborhood who noses around everyone’s business and watches out the window whenever she hears a noise. She reminds me of the nasty old bat neighbor on Bewitched. It makes me laugh to be older than Rosemary and still to describe her as ‘old’ when I’d hardly call myself ‘old’. I don’t ever stop to feel old, but Rosemary...wow, is she old, I think as I start to approach the front door and (as I could have predicted) she opens it. 

Oh, dear god in heaven. Her outfit. What is going on with her outfit? If that isn’t absolutely the worst sweater of hers that I’ve ever seen I don’t know what is. She usually has horrific taste in fashion, but for god’s sake I’ve never seen anything like that. The sweater is at least a little tight in comparison to what she usually wears, but it’s this periwinkle blue color which when combined with the baby pink and white makes it look like a cupcake threw up icing on it. Jesus Christ, it’s like mostly that blue color, but the white spills over the shoulders and the chest and it drips down until it’s dammed by a whole border of fuzzy pink...what the fuck is that, anyway? It looks like shag carpeting. Yeah. It looks like this drippy mess of white yarn is being stopped only by this pink fluffy border of shag carpet material. And the embroidery in the middle...it’s a monstrosity. The same pink that makes up the border along the flood of white dripping down the shirt is interwoven with the same blue that makes up the other half of the fucking thing in this bow, and ugh...I can’t go on. Where does she buy these clothes? And why? And the jeans are hanging off of her. She’s so thin, and her clothes are so big. How did she make it to this age without learning how to dress herself? 

She’s opening the door now, and now I’m noticing her hair, too. Oh dear. It’s very...young. Low pigtails, and the satin headband she always wears. The juxtaposition of young and old is a little jarring, I gotta say. Jarring. Yeah, that’s the right word to use if I’m going to be generous, which I am because I can’t get myself into too much of a bad mood right now. 

“Hello, dear. How are you?” 

Her voice is high pitched and grandmotherly, as usual, signaling to all how friendly and sweet she is. I almost feel bad for being so judgmental of her when she acts all sweet like this and invites me into her house. It’s these times where I can see what Syd sees in her, almost. Kind of. Maybe. Ugh.

“Rosemary, hi!” 

I try to sound just as enthusiastic and high pitched, matching her stupid tone and hopefully making her feel just as guilty for hating me as much as I know she does. 

We give each other fake cheek kisses. You know the kind: the ones where your lips don’t actually touch the other person’s cheek, and you’re clearly just doing it because it’s expected. It makes the air in the room take on a seriously chaotic and poisonous quality, but it always ends up feeling like that to me when Rosemary is in the room. 

“Why don’t you come on in? I have tea on in the kitchen, of course. When will Ms. Harlow be here?” 

“Cora will hopefully be here within the next 10 minutes or so, and she’s actually bringing her girlfriend Judy with her.” 

“Oh, that’s right. Her … girlfriend.” 

I can hear the distaste rolling off of her tongue in the way that she says ‘girlfriend’ like it’s a dirty word. At first she had assumed that Cora and Judy were just good friends (because women of our mothers’ age taught us to use that word to refer to our friends), but then I explained to they that no … they are actually together, and I could have sworn her tongue was going to fall out of her mouth. Has she never met lesbians before? Having Syd for a brother, it really surprises me that Rosemary has such a weird attitude toward a gay couple. 

“Yep, that’s right.” 

I help myself to a seat in her living room, and I sit in her puke green straight back chair on purpose because I can just imagine her sitting here reading a trashy romance novel with her ugly little Shih Tzu on her lap, the obnoxious little demon named Cinnamon who I’ve already had to kick off of my leg twice now. She stares at me as I cross one leg over the other and hand her my coat, which I’ve just taken off. I hope you can tell I plan to be as annoying and passive aggressive as possible while I’m here without Cora because I’m really dying to say something nasty and I just can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to say anything to her that she might mention to Syd and that I’ll end up regretting. She isn’t worth making him feel bad.

“That’s good. That’s very good to know.” 

“Are you going to sit down too, or…?” 

“I think I’ll wait until the tea is ready. If you don’t mind, of course.”

“I don’t mind at all. Do you have anything to read in the meantime?”

“Well, there are some magazines there, but you could also come and sit in the kitchen.” 

I pore over her selection of magazines and newspapers: The Sun, The Daily Mail, OK!, and TV Choice. Yikes. Not my usual fare. This is more along the lines of what Alice’s annoying friend Michelle reads. She’s the type that gets obsessed with celebrities and then claims she knows them. She carries the lie so far, and I know this because we go on acting like we believe it just to see how far she’ll go. Anyhow, looking over my scant time wasting options, I decide it’s probably better to sit in the kitchen with her for a few minutes. She was nice enough to let me stay here, after all. 

“You’re right. I could. I’ll come and join you. Is there anything I can do?” 

“I thought we’d wait until our other guests arrived, and then perhaps we’d discuss what we wanted to eat. For now I’m just going to make tea, but if you’d like to dry the dishes I wouldn’t mind.”

She’s seen dirty dishes pile up at my house, and so she knows I really don’t like to do the dishes. They get done...I’ll do them, eventually, if Syd doesn’t do them first (and he usually doesn’t, and I’ve stopped asking, and I’ve stopped being mad that he doesn’t). Immediately I feel on the defensive. All she did was ask me to wash her dishes, right? I’m not sure why I’m so uneasy around her. She hasn’t even done anything wrong. 

“Sure. I don’t have anything else to do,” I say as I walk toward her sink and pick up her dish towel, a red rag that clashes with the yellow situation she has going on in the kitchen. I’m really not sure what her interior design motif is, but I know Syd had nothing to do with it (I hated it so much I asked him if he did it, he laughed and admitted that he had asked to paint her house, but she wouldn’t let him). I start drying her dishes: white ceramic with little pink bows strategically placed around the border. I hate them already, but maybe because they’re hers. As she’s fiddling around near the stove I notice her pull a little cardboard box out of one of the cabinets above it. She approaches me, a mischievous smile on her face, and holds the box out to me. 

“This is for you, but it’s also for my brother. It’s tea I had made especially for both of you, if you catch my drift. You know, for tomorrow night. It’ll help give him a boost.” 

She winks at me and I graciously accept her gift, giving her a very tight hug. Maybe she thinks it’s affectionate, but it’s the closest I’ll get to strangling her so I take advantage of it. How presumptuous of her. I guess anyone would assume that we’d be having sex on our wedding night, but I haven’t even thought that far ahead about it. It makes me a little bit anxious because I’m not sure if Syd is attracted to me sexually at all, or if that’s just missing from our relationship. 

“Thank you, Rose. That’s so sweet of you to have done that.” 

I place the box in my purse, ready to have a laugh about it with Syd when I can and maybe let him taste it just as a joke - that is, if he can stomach it. He doesn’t have that sophisticated a palate, you know. I’m sure you’ve guessed that. When somebody goes their entire life eating crap they get used to the taste of crap, and he drinks nothing but English Breakfast Tea (which she has to know by now), so I can’t imagine I’m gonna get an entire cup of this down his throat, but whatever. 

“Don’t even mention it. It was the least I could do. You’ve been such a big help to us, you know, especially to me. Your presence here has been absolutely invaluable. I was doing this all on my own before you came.”

Doing what all on your own? Your brother was eating a horrible diet, his house was in shambles, he was barely on a regular shower schedule...what exactly were you doing for all of those years? 

“Oh, I’m happy to do all of this, you know that.” 

And that would be the truth: I am indeed happy to do all of this, and I think Syd is just happy that it’s being done. 

“You know, I had been thinking, actually...do you think it would be good for you and Roger to perhaps get a dog?”

“A dog? Why? What do we need a dog for?”

“Well, you know. You’re a woman, and my brother is rather weak...in case of intruders, that’s all.” 

“Nobody is going to break into Syd Barrett’s house, Rose.” 

“How do you know that?” 

“Because anybody that tried would have the cops called on them right away by the neighbors who you know for a fact don’t like it when the neighborhood is anything but the quietest it can possibly be.” 

“I’m just saying it might be good to think of your safety now that my brother is getting weaker.” 

“I really don’t want to talk about my partner getting weaker on the night of my bachelorette party, you know? I just want to focus on how strong Syd still is, and how much time we have to enjoy being married.” 

“Well, I’m just saying that one can’t be too prepared, and that perhaps a dog would…”

“If it would make you feel better, I’ll have a home security system installed, but we’re not getting a dog.” 

“Now why ever not? Cinnamon is such a little love,” she says as she lifts that smelly, drooling pile of disgust into her arms and buries her face in its fur, which she keeps very well. Stupid thing is more spoiled than every child I know. It’s not that I hate dogs in particular, I’m just not the biggest fan, but this one...this one is the devil’s spawn. Loud, ugly, yappy, horny little thing. Yuck. I might not even dislike it so much if it weren’t hers.

“I’m not really a dog person, and I don’t think Syd is, either.” 

“Well, you’d be right about that. ROGER….” she clears her throat to emphasize Syd’s real name, which she insists I call him every time I talk to her, and I never do “...is certainly not a dog person, but I’d think you would want to do what’s best for him, and not necessarily what he wants.” 

“Oh, you have no idea how often I have to do that. But then again, you would know wouldn’t you? You did this for so many years.”

I can hear the forced kindness in my voice as I watch her face fall when she hears it too, and thank god - I can hear Cora’s laugh outside and I place the dish I was drying where it belongs, place the rag back on the hook it had been hanging on, and I run to the front door: eager to get away from her and her condescension and her incessant ‘sister knows best’ advice. 

Maybe it looked hasty to her, my exit from the kitchen, but I’m so over this already that I don’t really care what she thinks right now. The sooner Cora and Judy get in here and help me remedy the entire situation and salvage something out of the night the better. I open Rosemary’s door, and in the glass I can see her reflection behind me: one hand on a bony hip. The way her denim capri pants stop right near where her shoes start makes them look really stupid. Her clothes don’t even fit her right. I try to erase the image of her stabbing me from my mind, but it’s killing me and I’m almost having to bite my lip to stop myself from smiling.

The first thing that strikes me as I open the door is Judy and her arresting beauty. She is quite literally an Amazon: tall, muscular, beautiful, dark skin with coily afro curls that grow maybe five or six inches from her head. I feel like the breath has been beaten out of me. She’s gorgeous! I fling the door open and hold it open for the two of them, and they don’t look dressed to sit at home and do nothing, of course. They look positively magnificent, both of them: Judy is dressed in a tan sport jacket and pants with a white pinstripe shirt on underneath, and her plump lips are stained with a cherry that is so stark it’s almost black. Her eyelids are gold, and I’m all but terrified of the kind of boldness it takes to wear gold eyeshadow at our age, but I can’t tell how old she is, which makes this all the more awkward. Her wrist boasts a gold Rolex watch with some little diamonds in it, enough to catch the eye. Cora, of course is a vision: her golden blonde hair, subtly streaked with silver, is piled on top of her head in a big bun that’s meant to look messy, so of course it looks well put together and thoughtless with a few strands flowing over her shoulders and around her face. I know she spent a ton of time on it (as she always used to with those elaborate hairstyles that Roger took for granted all the time), and I can smell her hairspray. I’m in awe of her pale pink lipstick and her light brown eyeshadow, and it reminds me a little bit of what she put on my face all those years ago when she made me over. Her blazer, black and white zigzag patterned, sits perfectly over a basic white t-shirt and is accented by black skinny cut pants and strappy heels. She’s got on a gold bracelet, and I hope that Judy bought it for her. She deserves a partner that buys her pretty gold jewelry and means it. 

“Hello!! Oh, you must be Judy. I’ve heard so much about you in such a short period of time. How are you?” 

“And you must be Maisie, and you’re as cute as she told me never to tell you you are!” 

She has a warm, African accent: the kind that’s dripping with honey, but she’s got that sour bite to the way she speaks that makes her irresistible. I can see how this lady awoke Cora’s sexuality, and maybe I’m a little jealous, but I can’t tell if I’m jealous because I didn’t awaken Cora’s sexuality or if I’m jealous that Cora gets a chance with a woman like this. 

“She still knows me after all these years,” I say as I smile and wrap my friend in a warm embrace. She laughs mischievously and pulls away from me, and she directs her eyes down toward her purse where I spot a tiny bag of weed poking out just for me to see. “You didn’t!,” I whisper in her ear. She’s always had that naughty streak to her, and she promised me she’d make the night worth it. 

“Of course I did. Come on. You didn’t think I’d let you flounder and suffer in this old biddy’s presence without your medicine!” She whispers back to me, and I can see her eyes roaming over Rosemary behind me. “You’re right, she looks atrocious,” she whispers even softer than before, purposely as soft as possible so Rose won’t hear her. 

Rosemary does her signature ‘clearing-my-throat-to-passive-aggressively-announce-my-presence-when-nobody’s-paying-attention-to-me’, and we all stop our happy little get together and turn toward her. Judy’s face says it all: she looks exactly like you said she would, too. That’s hilarious. I wonder how she must have described Rosemary to her. 

“Good evening to you both. Ms. Harlow, it’s certainly nice to see you.” 

“Ah, yes. Rosemary … Breen, is it now?” 

Cora regards Rosemary with very apparent and comical distaste, almost like she’s a pile of soot on the floor, or a piece of leftover cake that’s been sitting out too long. Like she’s not good enough to expend the effort to get rid of. In return Rosemary’s got her eyes square on Cora and her finery, her eyes ready to shoot holes through her. There’s the image of Rosemary crazed and stabbing again. This is going to be a long night.

“Breen, yes. I gather you’ve spoken about me?”

“Oh, you know. Cora and I went out to lunch and I spoke about you a bit, of course.”

“Not at any length, if it makes one feel any better,” Cora pipes up. 

The color drains from Rosemary’s face when her eyes drift onto Judy: oh, not only is she a lesbian, she’s a black, too. Looks like Rose is gonna fall over dead of shock. Not exactly sure how to be in the presence of the black woman, is she? Judy smirks, aware that it is exactly what it is, and probably finding it just as funny as we do. 

“Of...of course. So...what did you ladies think you’d...like to do this evening?”

“I’ve actually taken care of everything,” Cora says with a smile.


	33. Roger - Cambridge, 1969 - David And Maisie's House/Roger's House/John's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW! Also, CW: definitely dubious consent in this chapter 
> 
> Roger rescues Syd from in front of Maisie and David's house like he was asked, but not without getting something for himself out of it first.

_Just what I needed today, right? It's rare that we get a full day off anymore now that we have a few albums out and play overseas. I've been practising today (mostly because of a lack of other things I felt like doing, including fucking Cora - there's always later for that, after all) but there was no rehearsal, no recording, no gigs...I was looking forward to perhaps relaxing a bit before I had to come back to such a stark reality as this one I've had thrust at me with no consideration for what I might need. Despite anything I would have wanted, reality has come back to bite me in the arse, as it does from time to time...too often, in fact. And now I'm off to go fetch Syd from David and … Ugh. David and Maisie's place. That kills me, to call it their place, but it is._

_I'm starting to get a headache, truthfully. It's like any time I manage to fucking escape somehow...whether from my worries about the quality of my work, worries about what others might think of my work, and of me...fears about my future with Cora, and whether there is to be one; my constant stream of consciousness about all of the bullshit going on in this country and in the United States; or...my fucking desperation. Just anywhere in my life, but mostly my desperation for her...any time I manage to find a way to forget about it all and play my music by myself, or write, or something...some fucking shit always happens that ruins it all._

_And lately...lately it always seems to be the worst when connected with one person, and I don't mind comforting him or bringing him home, but it's just that it's all so loud so often._

_Syd's shown up there and scared her of course, is what I'm alluding to. He's sitting out there on the rock in front of their house like a lost dog waiting for Maisie to come out and take him home. That's what I was told, anyway, and I'm walking over there now to go get him, of course, and bring him home. Why in the bloody hell is he living there, anyway...that nasty drug den he's taken up residence in with that trashbag artist and his meandering brother? Syd's mother is a right little fucking cunt, she is, and don't you ever forget that for one second. I don't care how cruel it sounds for me to say this, because I feel we've all skirted around it: Syd's mother is a cruel, frigid social climber who has neglected her son and let him falter in the wind to avoid upsetting her neighbours. She has totally removed any hint of her oldest child from her life and thrown her focus onto only the second (who went from being Syd's cute, bony little sister to who knows what, an old lady of just 21 or so always disapproving of everything), and in the meantime multiple people besides her own son have suffered as a result of his condition. No one cares about Syd but us...not really, but we can't do anything about it anymore._

_This is all I can do._

_I just want to make Syd feel better. I wanna take him in my arms and kiss his forehead and his cheeks until he doesn't cry anymore. I want him to heal and be who I know he is. I want my sweet boy back. I want my lover back. My best friend. I remember so fondly his sweet laugh and his mischievous smile...his tender, lithe frame...almost not real: fairy-like. The mop of Jimi Hendrix curls he tried so hard to maintain (Maisie gave him perms...what a girl he is), the way a cigarette dangled from his mouth when he smiled at me…I miss that boy, and I want to bring him home to me...but he's gone now. I don't know where, but he's gone._

_But I want to be with Maisie too right now, and that makes this all that much worse... I want to kiss her tears away too, and make sure she never feels scared or unsafe ever again. I want to smell her smell and touch her soft hair, wrap my arms around her warm body and treat her like the princess she is. Perhaps David is getting all of that right now. Maybe he's holding her so close he could absorb her if he tried to, and she's limp: powerless, afraid... relying only on him for her comfort and her safety. It makes me sick. I can picture them so close together with Maisie's tears streaming down her face... David kisses each of them away and holds her tight until she calms down, and it makes me feel like there's a weight in my stomach. It makes me want to vomit._

_I want to love them both. They had such a beautiful love, and I only wish I could have been included. Imagine the three of us loving one another and staying together and cuddling, and having sex together...all of us so blissfully unaware of others and so lost in the love we all share. Maisie wrapping us both up in her arms, or letting us lie together on her breasts, the two of us kissing them and kissing each other...the two of us embracing and kissing her, covering her with kisses and slowly moving into touching her everywhere, so lovingly she can't resist us. Syd and I kissing each other while Maisie strokes our hair. We would have been happy. We would have been in love. I never would have needed anything else but the two of them._

_I guess I'll go in there after I get Syd home and come back, and I'll sit with Maisie too and try to make her feel better...if she'll let me, and if I can figure out exactly what I want to say. With my luck I'll try to tell her something funny and end up telling her I think she should have let Syd inside and that she's evil for calling me to get rid of him. That's something I'd spit at her by accident, isn't it? Something cruel like that, something I don't even actually think. Why do I do that? I don't know why, but it's like every time I try to be sweet to her I can't get the words out right. It's going to take so much out of me to be able to say the right words to her, or even something remotely resembling the right words. She makes me feel stupid. I can't think, or speak, when I'm around her...she probably thinks I hate her, doesn't she?_

_If only I hated her._

_But … If I could only be as loving with her as I long to be...if I could I'd make her laugh and show her every day how much I love her. You'd never meet a more satisfied woman (if satisfying a woman is possible) than she would be if I figured it all out and if she'd only give me a chance to prove myself to her. I'd have a ring on her finger and a baby in her arms within two years, I bet, and what would David say then? I try to treat each time I can summon the nerve to speak to her at all as a chance for it to be the first spark that lights what one day could be a blaze. Do you think she can see it at all, the way that I want her so much it's killing me to have to be so close to her all the time? Do you think she notices that I'm always looking at her out of the corner of my eye, or that whenever she needs something I'm always there?_

_Ah, to be so desperate for the love of one woman. I live in hell the way I want her, and it will never be satisfied. My craving for her kiss is never to be satisfied, only ever to be left unquenched, killing me slowly until one day I shrivel up and die of a broken heart years into the future after years of longing that have gone completely unnoticed despite my pathetic attempts to do small things that might make her see. If only she'd let me hold her while she cried instead of David. If only I could whisper to her 'please let me stay close to you', and she would…she'd go limp, she'd submit to me, she'd be mine. If only._

_There he is, my sweet one, I think as I pass by the buildings on their little side street and and he slowly seeps into my field of vision. He's sad and desolate with his knees curled up into himself: his hair matted...his face dirty, his eyes sunken in. He is wasting away, and he cries tears I can see from here for his love to come for him. I feel so tender for him. What can I do? He's so lost and sad and probably all he longs for is her embrace...just like me. And besides...she can't come out for him, but I came._

_"Syd," I say as I step between him and the quaint red brick house Maisie and David live in. He looks up at me, his eyes hollow and dark but so sad, and he reaches for my hand. I let him take it and we sit together, our hands clasped, for a few seconds staring at Maisie's house. I wonder what they're doing in there. Do you think she's okay?_

_I rub my thumb over his hand and move in closer to him until we're next to each other. Touching. I could wrap him in my arms right now if I wanted. I could take him home with me. Cora's not likely to pop by at the moment, I'm sure, because she left before to go to her mother's...and she stays there well into the evening usually. Yeah, why don't we do that? I'll take him home...get him washed, of course, because he stinks something terrible…and we could...it could be like old times, maybe. We could salvage something of what we used to have._

_"What are you doing here, Roger? I'm just waiting for my Maisie. I think she's going to come out soon and talk to me. Maybe I'll bring her home and she'll love me again."_

_He sounds like he really believes it. It sounds like somewhere in his mind he's convinced himself that after something like what he did he has any right expecting that there's somehow a possibility that this girl would come out and talk to him. This is the true mark of someone who's lost it. I almost don't feel right bringing him home._

_"Actually, Syd…" I say as I rest my hand on his back… "David called me to take you home. Maisie's really afraid with you sitting out here staring at her."_

_He looks over at me, and I can see that he starts to cry again, but he wipes his eyes and his gaze turns angry and cold. He shivers, but not from the cold...more from the rage I can tell he's trying to conceal. Syd never did like to be discouraged from doing anything, but that was before he changed. Now that things are different I don't know what to expect from him. In the past when Syd had his mind set on something he always got what he wanted, and that includes Maisie. Stole her right out from under me...but then again...with how I was treating her, it's not as if I made it very difficult for him._

_"Maisie loves me," he says matter-of-factly, "I know she'll come out for me. I know she'll take me back and stay with me."_

_How can he be so deluded? Maisie doesn't love him anymore, and she's not going to see him for any reason. He's out of his head. She's finished with him. What can I even say to this? How can I indulge this? I want to make it alright for him, but at the same time I don't want to lie. She's never going to come out. Not for Syd...not for me. Not for anyone but David Gilmour. Something tells me he'll still wait, though...even if it's not in front of her house._

_"We both wish that were true. I wish she'd come for me, too. I wish she'd come into my arms and let me love her, too, but she won't. And she won't let you love her, either."_

_He punches my arm like he used to do: a light smack on the arm. A playful punch, one to let me know he's not really angry at me, but that he doesn't like what I'm saying and he wants me to keep it to myself. I wish I could, but he has to know that Maisie isn't playing around...I saw how terrified she was that day when David brought her to my house, and I wish I could shake him and make him see it's better to leave well enough alone than to continue to try to fight for what will never happen. Somebody has to tell him, and I don't think anybody really does. He's glaring at me again now, though. I can feel the anger he has for me bubbling inside him like it's cooking. I hate that glare, I hate especially being on the receiving end of that glare. It's never a good feeling...being the one Syd decides to glare at like that. It's like being stabbed. He really seems to believe this, that Maisie's coming out for him. Wow. He doesn't seem to have any awareness of what he did to her or how terrible it really was._

_"I'm sorry that you're a fool, and you give up on love, but I don't. I won't. Maisie and I are meant to be, and if you really thought the same you'd wait for her, too."_

_As you can imagine that feels like a hit straight to my bloody innards; I kill myself every day with my need of her, my heart is constantly in fucking shambles for her, and he thinks I'm not waiting for her. Of course I'm waiting for her, but I'm not stupid enough to show her that._

_"My love, sometimes we wait for someone and still move on with our lives. I'll always wait for her just like I'll always wait for you, but during the waiting I think I'm entitled to do other things."_

_"You're waiting for me?"_

_His eyes roam my face and I can see, for a single second, the sparkles in his gentle brown eyes that so remind me of the sparkles in Maisie's. But now...now he's so far away that I have to hold on for dear life to each moment that Syd...not whoever this sad, strange creature is … shows up to greet me and I can see him for who I know he is: my loving, free-spirited bit of sunshine in the fucking darkness of my life. The rainbow in my thunderstorms and squalls. The piece of mango in my boring fruit salad with too much cantaloupe._

_Just like her. But he'll let me love him, and she can't even conceive of the idea of ever being loved by me._

_If fucking only. I positively hate to sound like a broken record, but if fucking only she ever noticed._

_I reach out and stroke his rough cheek and his dry, cracked lips, and I bring his fingertips to mine...I hope he can enjoy how they feel, maybe. Despite the putrid mixture of stench of his clothes, breath, hair, body, and shoes it's like underneath it my Syd is still there somewhere and so I need to touch him if he'll let me._

_I wish that I could feel totally immersed in my desire for Syd, but unfortunately his odour has made it impossible. He is not showering enough, if at all, clearly. We're going to have to change that if we are to get anywhere here today. It's best for me to pay the kindness Maisie gave me to someone who will have it from me...don't remind me. Can you imagine if we could all maybe bathe together like that? Wash one another and lie one another's arms. Wouldn't that be beautiful, transcendent and spectacular?_

_I grab both sides of his face with my hands, cherishing it despite its roughness and how I want to balk at it when I first touch it. My sweet boy is under these nauseating layers somewhere. I lean my forehead against his, and my heart's pounding like a drum. I've always been waiting for Syd, but it's simply a matter of ever allowing myself to perhaps feel those feelings for awhile. Perhaps today we can re-ignite them._

_"I'll never stop waiting for you. For either of you. I'll always wait for the day when the three of us can love one another and be together. Do you hear me?"_

_"Will you please kiss me one more time? I mean...I still...I still love you. I will never stop loving you, or loving my Maisie. But I don't need other people besides you two and my family so I don't need to move on. I won't."_

_My heart is racing, you know. I don't let myself think about how much I long for Syd: long to kiss him, to be near him, to be back where we were so long ago. Of course I'll take the opportunity to kiss him. No one is about on the street, anyway. But then I realise I have the opportunity to use this to get him out of here and back to my place so we can have a bath and then perhaps see where the day takes us._

_"Yeah, I'll kiss you...if you'll come home with me. Back to my place for a bit, you know."_

_Hidden beneath the frustration in Syd's eyes is what I swear could be desperation and resignation to the fact that if he wants one of us he's got to let the other one go for now. I certainly don't want to let her go right now, but that's what the situation demands, really, and if he and I have this opportunity to be together and enjoy ourselves we'd be remiss not to take it. I think he knows that._

_"I'm going to go with you," he says after a few minutes of considering it, "but I simply cannot promise that I won't come back here, you know."_

_"You shouldn't come back, you know."_

_"You're wrong. She'll come out. Maisie loves me. Maisie and I are for always."_

_There's a desperate defensiveness in his voice, one that if he were well perhaps he'd try to hide. He needs to hang on to this idea that the two of them are somehow destined for one another in order to maintain any kind of sanity, it seems._

_"So are you and I, you know. Now come with me and let's take you back home with me. We'll have a bath."_

_I gather Syd in my arms and pull him up off the rock he was sitting on, the big boulder right next to their letterbox. He puts up no resistance, and goes limp as I squeeze him in my embrace, trapping him, giving him no room to escape. I wish that when I touched his hair I felt the mess of beautiful silky curls he used to have instead of these dry, crusty mats of hair that he's got now. I wish that his sinewy, delicate body weren't disintegrating right in front of my eyes._

_"I don't want to go take a bath, Roger, or brush my hair," he whines as he stares up into my eyes. It's a rare day where he's able to articulate full sentences and hold an actual conversation, and he's doing remarkably well today. "It hurts and the water makes my skin crack and bleed. There's bugs in the water and they eat my skin alive and I can't stop scratching."_

_No wonder he's stopped bathing if that's what he's convinced himself is happening. I can see that he's been scratching as I roll up his sleeve, and I pause for a moment before letting my fingers drift over all of his scrapes and scratches: every place where the skin is cracked and broken from his own abuse. I simply cannot let this stand. I'm going to have to do more than bathe Syd; I'm going to have to treat these little wounds as well as moisturise him, but as far as his hair goes...that's his problem. Just based on looking at it I can tell that trying to do anything with it will just cause both of us pain._

_"I won't let any bugs get at you. You know that, yes? You desperately need a bath, my love. When was the last time someone cared for you and bathed you?"_

_"Maisie used to give me my baths. I miss when she gave me baths. She always used bubbles and the water was always warm. There were never any bugs in her baths, only nice smelling soap and bubbles...and her gentle hands."_

_That brings me back to the night in St. Tropez when Maisie bathed me. He's right, indeed: there are no bugs in her baths, and the soap does smell so good, and her hands are so, so gentle._

_"You know, me too. She gave me a bath in France, actually."_

_"She...she did?"_

_His voice is...I can't describe it. It's like he's...like he's jealous. I would be too. I was jealous when I used to watch Maisie bathe Syd through their bathroom window. He would be curled up in the bathtub, trying to fight it...whining. Crying. Begging for Maisie to please let him get out, but she never did, because she can't deal with dirt. It might get annoying to anyone, but I'd rather have it than not. She'd swirl her fingers around in his hair... massaging his scalp just like she did mine, and she'd lather all the soap until she could dump water over his head, and after the initial shock (where he would cry and gasp) he would always relax after he felt the warm water comforting him, dripping down his body. She was so tender, and so loving, with him the way she washed his hair and his face and his whole body that I could feel a void inside my body where the warmth of that moment should be. Her hands were like beautiful little angel hands on his body, blessing and nursing him. He has no right to be jealous: when she bathed him she did it out of love, not pity._

_"Yes. Anyway...my girlfriend Cora has bubbles at my house, so we can use bubbles in your bath. I won't let any bugs get to you. We need to get you clean, though."_

_"Do you mean it? I would only want to take a bath if I could have bubbles."_

_"Yes. We'll put as much as you want in the water. We could use the whole bottle if it would make you happy."_

_"You're really taking me home with you?"_

_"Yeah," I say with a kiss on the top of his head. "I'm gonna clean you up and take care of you today, okay?"_

_"Thank...thank you. Are you sure Maisie won't come with us?"_

_"Oh, baby," I whisper to Syd as I stroke his coal black bird's nest of hair, "Maisie isn't going to come with us. She's going to stay in there with David. It's just you and me today, I'm afraid."_

_I cradle Syd's head in my arms and hold my breath as I lean down into his hair so I don't have to breathe in his foul odour, and instead I try to focus on how it feels to have him back in my arms again. It's pretty surreal; I can't really believe this is anything but a beautiful dream. It almost feels prematurely empty and lonely because I'm refusing to truly believe it._

_"That's not so bad," he whispers to me as he nuzzles his head into my armpit and burrows into my body. We're going to have to leave soon, I think. I'm starting to get excited._

_"Let's go, then, hm?"_

_I slide down off of the boulder and hold my arm out for Syd so he can take my hand. He gazes once more at me, a hint of danger in his eyes, and I wonder what that look could be hiding. Could he be thinking what I'm thinking: that he and I might be able to rekindle things tonight and make love? Am I a pig for even entertaining the thought? What's wrong with me that I could even consider having sex with him when he's so far gone?_

_"Okay, then. Let's. I want to go home with you, Roger. And...and take a bath with bubbles, and no bugs. Do you promise it won't hurt? The water always makes my skin crackle and splinter."_

_"It won't hurt, Prince. I promise. We'll run the water so it's warm, and I'll get in with you."_

_"I love you, you know. Even though I love Maisie so much I love you so much too. You're so beautiful and kind underneath all your nonsense, Roger."_

_Even though these words hurt me they only hurt me because I know they're true. There are many thorny layers one must cut through to find who I am underneath all of them, and not surprisingly most have failed to find themselves up to the challenge. Syd...I know that if Syd were well, and if I could stop being afraid of what others might say about our love, he would be up to the task. That's why I'm here._

_"Syd, baby, I love you so much, and I'm gonna show you just how much when we get home. I hope you never forget just how much I love you after today."_

_"I would never have forgotten anyway, you silly old lout," he whispers as he slips his arm through mine and leans his cheek against my cheek. I wish he didn't smell so terrible...I wish he didn't feel so old and broken._

_"Let's go. Come on now. I want to get you home and get you into my bathtub."_

_Our walk home …It reminded me so much of old times. Syd and I used to love to sneak off together and take walks without the other guys from the band. We'd wander on down to Grantchester and sit by the lake and Syd would play with the butterflies. It always made me feel like finally there was something worth waking up every day for. Maybe today wasn't exactly like that... Syd is not nearly as carefree as he was, even on a day like today when he seems to have found his way back into lucidity. It's not uncommon to find Syd wandering, unable to answer any questions or tell you anything concrete about what he's doing._

_Finally, after about 15 minutes we reach my house, and I let us both in the front door. Maybe it's been longer: I'm not sure. All I can think of is how to best get him naked and into my tub so I can clean him off and get my hands on him. This is gonna be rough, trying not to just fuck him where he stands. Thank god Cora didn't decide to come round while I was out collecting Syd: if I had to deal with explaining to her why I was bringing him home...well, I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to explain would it, but it would also be quite a wasted effort on my part._

_"Your house looks so different. Like it's not the same house," he says as he spins around and looks at my house in every direction he can take it in from. "Did you get a visit from the New House Fairy? Did she give you new furniture?"_

_"Nah. I just have a girl coming over, so she's left her touch here, I suppose. Do you hate it?"_

_"No, no. I quite like it, actually." He turns to me, and I'm able to see beneath all the squalour that my sweet boy is enamoured by my house even though to me it looks like nothing out of the ordinary. Syd always did see so many special things in what I always thought was dry mundanity. Things like my boring old house, for instance. I was once proud of owning it outright, but now that's sort of lost its luster and meaning. "Your girlfriend must be a beautiful, wonderful lady. She's very lucky to be with you."_

_Cora is wonderful, isn't she? She's obviously beautiful, anyone with eyes can see that she's visually stunning. Any man would be jealous of me, walking around with a woman like her. Yet...I don't care. I don't want her. She looks like every man's dream, but I couldn't give two fucks less. Syd on the other hand, though... Syd's attention I want._

_Yeah, now that I'm really looking him over I can tell that this is the one I want to be with right now. It's sort of looking like he's piling weight on, somehow, but I don't care. You know that doesn't repel me. In fact, I think I rather quite like it. His ass is still plump and round even though he looks like a mess. Hmm. Everything about him is so appetizing despite the fact that I still haven't gotten him into the bathroom._

_"Let's get to the tub, shall we? I think it's high time we got ourselves clean."_

_"I think you're right," he whispers to me. For a second I get the cruel, harsh pestilence that is his stench stuck lodged in my nose, and it takes all I have not to vomit as I usher him into the bathroom. I'm rubbing his shoulders as I glance around the room, looking for whatever I can grab to try to soften his skin and make him presentable and clean without hurting him: some of Cora's lilac scented body lotion, soap, lavender scented bath bubbles, Cora's toothbrush (I will, of course, replace it with an identical one), toothpaste, towels...I am looking all over the place. I'm going to get him comfortable and clean...and ready for sex...if there's nothing else I do today._

_"I'll start the water. Are lavender bubbles okay for you? That's all Cora has, I'm afraid."_

_"Yes," he replies from a faint, far away place as he gets lost taking in the way I threw my bathroom together._

_I don't get it. He really sees something worth looking at on these drab off-white walls and generic framed paintings of flowers I let my girlfriend hang up to make herself feel better getting ready in here. He's like, wandering around looking intently into each petal and leaf...every long, graceful green stem._

_"You alright, love?"_

_"This one looks like you, Teddy."_

_I don't know why Syd calls me Teddy. This nickname sprung up out of nowhere like a weed (like the weird long one he's comparing me to right now) a few years ago for some reason; I can't quite remember if there was something that it was in reference to, only that he just started saying it one day, and I never complained. I thought it was cute. Not once did I encourage the behaviour, but I'll be damned if I ever let it stop if I can help it._

_"Thanks for that, then, you naughty imp," I whisper to him as I smack his ass and grip one cheek...I'm trying to avoid feeling repulsed and disgusted by the way his crusty, sweaty clothes feel. We'll fix it soon enough. In just a matter of moments Syd will be stripped nude and in my bathtub, and I'll be washing his body and face, and touching every inch of him. It's going to be great. Hopefully he's sane enough to make it the whole way through and we don't have to stop. That would be quite a shame. Of course I'd stop. You thought for a second that I'd make Syd push through sex, didn't you? Well, I don't blame you, and I'd be a liar to say the thought hadn't crossed my mind. However...I couldn't imagine actually doing so, and so let's hope that he's able to make it so we can avoid having any sort of problems._

_"Will you help me with my clothes?"_

_"Yes, and in fact I'm going to make sure they're washed. Do you have clean clothes at home?"_

_"Not many. I think the demons who live there are stealing my clothes and so I just wear this one outfit."_

_I want to respond: 'Yeah, I can tell', but I'm not nearly that callous. Not with Syd, anyway. I'd rather do what I can to get rid of the stench rather than say anything to him about it. After all, there's relatively little I think Syd can even do about his hygiene now. I think his mind is far too off course to be able to keep up with his body._

_I'd lend Syd my clothes, but...I'm not sure I'll get them back. Fuck it. I've got enough money to replace one set of clothes._

_"You can have some of my clothes when we're done. I'll throw these out, actually," I say as I turn my eyes to his clothes, trying to envision what he looks like with them off before I get him into the tub. Luckily the water is starting to fill it, and I notice a cloud of steam rising from it as I pour some bubbles into the stream of water running from the faucet like it can't wait to get the fuck out of there._

_I walk over to him and as I stare into his eyes I start to unbutton his shirt. I'm breathing through my mouth to avoid the smell, once again, but it doesn't seem so bad now as I reveal my lover's bare chest: smooth, hairless and pale, fragile white. I throw his shirt to the side and he trembles as he stares into my eyes: his eyes sad, afraid, haunted...I don't know if I can do this, have sex with him. His lips twist into his mischievous smile, that smile I know all too well, and that's enough of a signal to me that he's alright that I don't feel guilty now. What do I mean I can't have sex with him? Look at that smile: of course I can. The sex will be worth whatever bad feelings I've got afterwards._

_With my eyes boring through his I run my hand over his chest, and I twist one nipple with my fingers while I lean over and kiss his cheek. I thought he might fight me, but he doesn't. He stands there like he's unsure what he wants, but he lets me continue. I grab one side of his face and move in for a kiss, and that's when he melts and comes right into my arms. I should've known._

_As our lips touch he slides his arms up over mine and wraps them around my neck. I'm trying to ignore the fetid taste of his mouth. Better brush his teeth._

_"Here you go, babe. Brush your teeth. I'll fetch you a towel."_

_I'm walking toward the linen closet and listening to the sound of Syd brushing his teeth, but when I look back he's laughing hysterically while jumping in front of the mirror._

_"Look, Roger! If I jump it brushes my teeth for me!"_

_I don't know where this came from, but I have to admit it's pretty funny, and I start cracking up laughing while he puts on a show brushing his teeth for me like a child. Now he's acting like Syd. Maybe this goes on longer than it should have, but I don't mind. Not like we're pressed for time. The bath is nearing fullness, though, so I'm trying to hurry him along a little without being overbearing or making him feel pressured. Wouldn't want him to feel pressured... nothing turns Syd into a maniac faster than feeling pressured (and what I mean is that he can get very cross very quickly when he feels he's being pushed to do something he doesn't want to do…)_

_Now that his mouth is bearable I'm ready to move this to the next level, and I'm behind him now, unbuttoning his trousers and sliding them off of his body. His thighs and his ass, fuller from whatever it is he's been eating, are almost bursting out of them, and it's like all three of them heave a sigh of relief when I roll the grimy red flare cut trousers down off of him and they hit the floor. I stand back and watch in amazement as he steps out of them, and I roll down his underwear, which I toss promptly in the wastebasket. There's absolutely no salvaging those, I'd imagine._

_It takes everything in me not to get hard just at the sight of his body again, even in spite of his being so grimy. Imagine how beautiful he'll be once we've gotten him clean. I can't wait to suck him off again if he'll let me. He doesn't always like to be touched, or to get off. I'm not sure why, but I'm not particularly bothered. As long as I get off it's fine with me if he doesn't want to, and I suspect he'd feel the same...if I ever decided I didn't want to get off._

_"You look positively gorgeous," I whisper in his ear, and he giggles. It's so nice to hear Syd giggle again. He doesn't. Syd doesn't look objectively gorgeous anymore. Syd looks like a messy Tasmanian Devil whirlwind with sunken in cheeks and at times hollow, haunted eyes. He looks horrendous...but not to me. Not for one second._

_"You're still my funny carrot stick boy," he says back to me. The teasing. I adore Syd's teasing. I'd blow my fucking head off screaming at anyone else who called me a carrot stick or carrot cake or a scarecrow or a horse boy. I hate being fucking teased for how I look. I know I'm not that attractive. There's no way to avoid being acutely aware of that blindingly obvious fact. However...when Syd teases me it's out of love. He loves how I look...just like I love how he looks unwashed and neglected._

_"You're my beautiful little fae boy," I reply as I slide my hands down over his bony hips and his thick, soft thighs, "and I've missed you every day."_

_"I miss you too, my Roger. My favorite boy in the whole world."_

_I know that most people simply tolerate me. I have very few true friends in this world, and most people see they can get good things from me and appease me to shut me up so they can keep reaping the benefits of what I can give them while staying away from my rampant, pestilent toxicity. Deep down I am also acutely aware of this, always, and so to truly have Syd's love...that is priceless to me._

_"You are also my favorite boy in the world, and I feel delighted and certainly quite lucky to be yours."_

_"I'm yours, though. I just want you and Maisie to be with me and I can belong to you both."_

_"Don't even begin to talk that way, you tease. You have no idea how I'd love that," I whisper as I lean in close to his ear and nibble it a bit. Syd shivers, and giggles just the right amount where it isn't annoying, but it's endearing and it makes me want to eat him up._

_"Yes, I do," he says with his young lad's dreamy, singsong voice, and he reaches for my face and kisses me with no hesitation. I'm only mildly bothered by the smell now that we're so close to getting in the tub._

_"Let's get in, yes?" I help him step over the side of my bathtub and he sighs as he feels the water covering every inch of his skin when he sinks down into it. He must feel so relaxed compared to when I went to fetch him by Maisie and David's place. Look at the way his mouth twists up into a content smile when he lowers himself deeper into the water, and it's covering his entire body when he reclines against the back of the tub. It makes me want to ravage him right here, but I've been doing my best to fight that urge for the past 15 minutes. Be patient, Roger. You'll get what you want soon enough. Let's hope, anyway._

_"Won't you come in now, too?"_

_Syd's voice is soft and pleading, and I shiver when I hear it because it reminds me so much of our old times that I feel like I must be the one going mad, imagining people that aren't there…so tied to the ghost of this love that it haunts me, and I can't tell the difference between my darling boy and the Loony in my bathtub. But no...that's really him. Syd is in my house...not only in my house, but nude in my bathtub and waiting for me to get in with him. Do you think he wants to have sex? Sure seems like he does, the way he's lying there and staring at me._

_"Of course I will, baby. Let me just get my clothes off."_

_I strip my clothes off for him, and he smiles as I throw everything on the floor and join him in the tub. I'd love to lie down with him, but I'm entirely too tall to do so in this tub (we are not all so lucky as Maisie's aunt and uncle to have huge bathtubs meant to fit a rather giant man. Ah, the water is amazing. So satisfying to me when I sit down near Syd's legs and fold my own legs into myself._

_"You're naked, too. We're naked together."_

_He sounds so happy, but so simple minded. That is to say...he always did sound a bit simple minded and immature, but this is...this is something new entirely, and now I'm not sure...do I want to do this, really? Would I be taking advantage of him? Should I stop?_

_No, no, I shouldn't: I can't. He looks delicious lounging there with bubbles blocking his cock like he did it on purpose. I hope he doesn't catch me looking and searching for it. I've missed it; I've definitely missed having it in my mouth. I find myself frozen with fear, almost shaking. I've got no idea what to do next, and I just want to get over this hump and get my hands on him and spend the rest of the afternoon fucking him until we both pass out. So I slide my hand up his leg and grab onto Cora's washcloth, pump some of Cora's body soap into it, and start washing his face first. I wipe his lips, the corners of his mouth that are all crusted with drool, the corners of his eyes so full of nastiness that I'm not sure when the last time he even went near them was, and his ears that are so full of wax he hasn't cleaned that I can see it, and not just up close. Once his face is clean I lean in and give him a deeper, more sensual kiss, the kind that I don't ever give Cora...the kind of kiss I'd only give to Syd, or to Maisie._

_He returns my kiss: his lips feel soft and kissable now, and not cracked and gunky like they felt before. His skin still feels rough, but his lips feel the way I remember them. When we pull apart I take my time studying every inch of Syd's face because I'm unsure if I'll ever be able to catch him this way again: lucid enough to talk to me. Lucid enough for what we are about to do._

_Next I was his neck and his pale, sunken chest. His body looks as if he's aged: his skin is saggy and hangs loose from the plump tummy I used to love. He must have already gained and lost weight, I think as I clean every inch of his upper body. He starts to tremble with fear, and remembering what he said to me before I take him in my arms and rock him._

_"Remember what I said before? No bugs, baby, right? I'm gonna keep them away. You don't have to be afraid."_

_"The water won't crack my skin?"_

_"Is it now?"_

_"No, I don't think so," he purrs as he nestles into my body, and I lean down and kiss the top of his hair. His giant rat's nest on his head is rough and dry against my skin; it barely even feels like hair anymore._

_"Then it won't at all," I whisper to him, and I hold up his arms and wash his armpits, hoping that between that and his nether regions we'll be able to get rid of the smell. He shivers as I wash his legs and his feet, and now I'm looking right into his eyes as I move the washcloth closer to his cock. He isn't hard, unfortunately, but maybe I can change that._

_"Please," he whispers._

_"Please yes, or please no?"_

_"Please...yes," he says, his eyes wide and his lips parted, and I bring my lips to his neck as I lower the washcloth onto him and wash around his cock, taking care to hit him in the places I know he likes it the best. He lets go of me and leans back against the back of the tub, lying in wait for whatever I'm about to do, and I throw the washcloth into the water to use my bare hand._

_I can feel his erection swelling beneath my fingers, hardening as his breathing grows more rapid. I bet his heart is racing...I reach my other hand out to his chest and stroke it to feel his heartbeat. His heart, pounding and racing harder and harder with each touch of my hand on his swelling cock is driving me mad. Now that he's hard enough I'm gripping his cock just the way I know he likes it: he always loved for me to grip it tight and go slow...I wonder if he fucked her that way, because she's definitely tight enough to feel like she was gripping tight onto him like this._

_"You're getting so hard for me, aren't you? Do you want to cum, baby?"_

_"I...I think I do."_

_"Do you? Are you sure?"_

_I whisper this in his ear as I lean in and kiss his neck while he quivers and the faintest moan escapes from his lips. I don't want to keep doing this unless he tells me he wants it, but now that I've started …Even if he thought he might want to say no he can't now. I've got him. His legs tense up and start to tremble as I reach for his sack and juggle his bollocks between my fingers._

_"Ah...ah...yes, Roger. I want to. I really want to...oh, Roger, you still do it just like I told you…"_

_"You're the only man I've ever shared my body and heart with, my baby. I'd never forget just how to please you."_

_"You're … you're my only boy love, too... ooh, my goodness…"_

_"Do you want me to put it in my mouth for you, Syd?", I ask, unable to stop reminding myself of the taste of his engorged erection in my mouth and bursting into the narrow tunnel of my throat._

_"Yes ...yes. Please, Roger. I'll do anything."_

_"You don't have to do anything. I really want it, too," I say to him as I bend over and kiss around the head of his thick cock._

_He moans as I slide my lips down his shaft. I've never told you how much I've missed this: his length completely in my mouth. I almost feel submissive with Syd with the way he feels in my mouth, but not completely... because he'll cum this way, but what he really likes is to be fucked. I slide my lips lower down his length, savouring every inch of his thick gourd shaped dick and sliding my tongue along the shaft...up and down...a little bit into my cheek...just a bit of a nibble on the head (that makes him really squirm). He's moaning so loud if Cora walked in now she'd know exactly what I was up to...but she'd think I was moaning, in here with another woman. What a surprise she'd get, hmm? Seeing her boyfriend in here with another man. Whatever would she say? Would she be surprised? Horrified? Angry? Would she finally throw in the towel and leave me? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad for her to catch me with him._

_I can feel his sublime girth pushing into my throat, and I've dreamt of this for so long and been so afraid of my feelings...of how much I've missed Syd's cock...that I have refused to think about it, and have only once or twice let myself feel the full force of my desire. Besides that I’ve tried so hard to put my lust for Syd from my mind that now that I have him I am feeling every inch of every feeling I’ve been blocking out. His rod tastes so good in my mouth...so natural...like it’s in the place it belongs most. I’m enjoying every single second of sliding my mouth and my tongue up and down his shaft until I can feel it jerking around in my mouth: he’s going to cum, I can tell._

_“Roger…” , he moans with all the energy he’s got left as his cock spurts a long stream of ejaculate into my mouth. I wait for him to finish, and I take every single drop into my mouth. Before I swallow I take a moment to savour it, realising I may never get this chance again for as long as I live. His cum tastes just like I remember it: salty, hot and just like it belongs to him. It’s the only male cum I’ve ever tasted, and I don’t ever plan to taste anyone else’s. He stares longingly at me as I swirl it around in my mouth one more time before letting every drop roll down my throat as I swallow it. When I’m done I reach for his cheek and I pull him close to kiss me: Syd never minded if he tasted himself when we kissed._

_“I love you,” I whisper to him as I bring my lips to his. “I love you so much.” And this time it’s not a mistake: this time I mean it. This time I’m saying it to the person I’m supposed to be saying it to...one of them, at least._

_“No, I love YOU,” he says with a giggle. He wraps his arms around my neck, and I try to lift him out of the tub as I pull the drain out. It’s a little difficult, admittedly, because he’s started to put on weight, but I manage to pull him up and carry him to my bed. As I toss him down I remember every time we made love here before: every beautiful, forbidden time that Syd and I lie here together in a sweaty heap after doing exactly what I’m about to do, folded into one another’s arms and laughing…laughing and dreaming.  
“Not nearly as much as I love you, my little flower,” I whisper as I roll him onto his stomach. I reach for the oil I’ve got on my bedside table and he trembles as I spread his cheeks and apply some inside his tight hole. I put some on my cock too, and I’m so hard it pains me. It’s been so long: too, too long. Now that both my cock and his hole are ready I grip both of his hips and slide my way in with careful precision. I can feel his tightness constricting my erection as I push it deeper inside him. He clenches as I enter, but then after I stroke his hair for a bit and lean over him to whisper calming words to him he relaxes, and I can fit just as easily as I used to inside him. _

_His moans are almost deafening: maybe he’s wanted this just as badly as I have. Has he been with another man since me?_

_His plump little ass meets my hips with every furious thrust of my cock inside it, and he grips my bedsheets every time I force my way deeper inside him. The head of my cock is hitting his prostate, I can tell, as he grunts and writhes with pleasure unlike anything he expressed while I had his cock in my mouth._

_“Please, Roger, be rougher with me,” he pleads through breathy moans and pleasurable grunts._

_“Are you sure?”_

_“Yes, it’s all I want…”_

_I do as he says, and I start to go at him harder and harder, slamming into him and with every thrust he meets me and he screams. He digs claws into my bedsheets, and after a few minutes of relentless pounding he collapses, unable to bear the weight of all of his pleasure. I keep going at him: I’m fucking him so hard it’s painful. I grunt and I feel like I’m gonna scream. It’s driving me mad, being inside him again, and with each merciless thrust I come closer and closer to getting off. I don’t want to get off yet though...I wanna make this last._

_“Do you want more, baby?”_

_“Yes...yes, more, and harder.”_

_“Anything for you, my love,” I force out as I grab a hold of the mats on his head that used to be hair and I keep on pounding. I swear it feels like my cock is gonna come out the other end of him I’m fucking him so deep and so hard. With my hand deep in his hair, and my other hand grabbing firmly at his hip I collapse on top of him and it feels so fucking good that I just keep going harder and harder at him. He could be bleeding for all I know, but if he is he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s squirming beneath me: sweating, moaning and almost crying. Could it be that it hurts?_

_If I could fuck him any harder I would, but I find myself unable to last any longer before I explode inside of him. Every drop of my cum has blasted itself inside his hole, and when he feels it he collapses again, giving up the little strength he had left in his arms to support himself. I do the same: collapse on top of him, and I roll over on my back and pull him on top of me. Both of our sweat makes us slick and if it were anyone else it might feel gross to be so close to him, but it doesn’t. It just feels like the only man I’ve ever loved is lying here with me in my arms, but for how long?_

_Then come these words, words that break my heart as soon as he says them:_

_"Can I stay with you, Roger? Will you keep me?"_

_I'd love to, but it isn't possible. This isn't my burden to bear, nor is it Cora's._

_"I'm sorry, my baby. I have my girlfriend staying here. I can take you to your mum's," I say as I swirl my fingers around in the tangled mess of his hair._

_"Mum doesn't want me there. She said I can't live there until I quit drugs."_

_Then why don't you quit drugs then, Syd? You could go home and be safe, and you'd be close by me, and I'd visit you more often. He was off LSD for awhile when Maisie was living with him, but as soon as David took her out Syd has been back on drugs, and it's done nothing but make him worse. Still, though, one cannot tell an addict to 'just quit': it doesn't seem to work that way._

_"Rosie, then?"_

_"Rosie is still too young to have her own place," he says, crestfallen. "I have to go back there to that place, but I don't want to."_

_"I'll walk you through the house into your room. We'll even get you a snack, yes? And so that way when I'm with you none of those blokes will bother you."_

_"I love you, Roger. You always protect me."_

_"I wouldn't do anything differently."_

_That's not true, though. I would do things with Syd differently if things were different._

_We walk back to his house, my arm around his shoulder, and some passers by in cars look over at us... probably wondering what we're doing standing so close together. So many minutes later we arrive at Syd's house, a small shack that somehow has enough bedrooms to house a million people every night. We walk through the front door, and immediately I see there guys and a cute little blond sitting in the living room smoking something, who knows what. Syd and I walk straight past them and head for his room, but they catch us on our way in._

_"Oi, the scrounger brought a friend home," one little twit laughs as he looks over at us. He's a fucking chav type probably does a ton of drugs and rapes girls and denies it. That type._

_"Yeah, why don't you bugger off, you cunt," I mutter at him as I lead Syd into his bedroom. The cunt sits there, mouth agape, like he's totally threatened by me. Good._

_"Why don't you fuck off and get out of my brother's house then?"_

_"Because your brother invited my mate to live here. That's why. Now I'm going to get him something to eat from the kitchen, and you're going to let him be."_

_Syd slips into his room and I make him a sandwich while the shitheads over there look on, probably in disbelief over my audacity. If I respected them I might not just take it upon myself to raid their refrigerator, but I don't. When I'm finished I carry the sandwich into Syd's room and rest it down on the night table. Syd is already face down in bed, crying loud enough for me to hear, and I lie down next to him on my stomach. I pull him into me, and I can feel his body so close to my own, his heat warming me...our lips are so close together now that I'm sweating. I promised him a kiss, didn't I? What is this going to feel like? Am I going to get scared and run away from him? I can't do it. I gotta follow through._

_I take Syd's face in my hands and lean in so our lips touch, and my heart comes alive with the feelings I've been ignoring. Even though his hair feels matted, coarse, messy and filthy I can't help but savour every inch of it as I grab a fistful of it and pull him closer to my lips._

_"Nn..." I hear him moan slightly as I pull him into my lips once more. I'm pressing my fingertips into his back, and his breathing quickens as I roll him over on top of me._

_"I miss you all the time," I whisper in Syd's ear._

_"And I miss you too. I want to be with you and Maisie, too. We could all live together, couldn't we?"_

_"Maybe we could have, but... let's just focus on now. I'll stay till you fall asleep, and then I'm gonna go…" A rather pregnant pause, given the volatility of the situation. "...back to David's house and check on them. You know."_

_"Will you tell my Maisie I said hello to her?"_

_I want to do it because I love him so, but I can't...there's no reason for me to be honest, though._

_"I'll tell her, yes."_

_After today I won't allow myself to feel these feelings, but for now I'm lost inside them. And now when I'm done here I'll be off to see Maisie. I don't know if she'll let me near her, but she might._


	34. Maisie - Cambridge, April 2006 - Rosemary's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie, Judy and Cora do makeup and plan an evening of shopping before dinner. Rosemary, eager not to be a part of it, removes herself...or does she?

Cora reaches out and grabs my arm, and I’m awestruck by that same dazzling, eager smile on her face that she always had when we were young. She holds her knuckle in between her teeth the same way she did then, too, and she squeaks.

“OH, I’m positively too excited to possibly wait one more minute to tell you everything I’ve done! You’re going to love it!” She jumps up and down once or twice. It was always one of my favorite things about her: the way she was so animated when she got excited about something. A new dress, her engagement ring (I followed Roger and David into the jewelry store, and he bought the one I liked for some reason? I don’t know why he did that. Maybe he’s just such an idiot that he didn’t understand that what she liked wouldn’t necessarily match what I liked. I could believe it. Roger’s definitely an idiot.), and now whatever it is she’s come up with for us all to do tonight. “Tonight, we are going to go to Don Pasquale!! Remember, Don Pasquale?” 

I think back on some places where we’d gone to eat in the 70s...either all of us as a group, or she and I with the guys on a double date, or just the two of us. There were so many. We went out to dinner so many times. Why can’t I remember this place? 

“I don’t...I’m not sure. I can’t really recall…?” 

“Oh, you silly goose! Do you remember that lovely little Italian place on Market Street? The one with that Italian villa style dining room and the beautiful low lighting? It was that night we were all there. I think it was your birthday! Your 25th birthday, if I’m remembering correctly.” 

Now it’s coming back to me: that was a terrible night. Oh, dear god. Why would she want to go back there? That was the night Amelia flipped out at Rick and threw her drink (glass and all) in his face. Literally threw her glass full of whatever kind of alcohol right at Rick’s face. Poor Jane scrambled off into the night and ran home, leaving Rick to fend for himself. I was so angry I stormed out, David and Cora followed me, Nick tried to calm Amelia down while Rick left to chase after Jane...it was the biggest mess.

“Wait a minute! That was a terrible night, Cora! Why would you want to go back there?” 

Her eyes and the corners of her lips turn up in a smile that could make a sly fox jealous.She’s actually shaking with excitement, and she squeals again. Judy smiles a warm, aloof smile from beside her...this must be something she loves about Cora, too. And how could she not? It’s as charming now as it was then, and maybe even more because it seems like finally that little cloud that always surrounded Cora back then has lifted. The ‘cloud’ must have just been Roger...or rather, the effect that being with Roger had on her. In fact, now that she’s without him she even looks better despite being 40 years older. Good for her. 

“Well if you remember I had planned that whole wretched evening for you! That evening that Amelia went and ruined like the psychopath she is.” She pauses, smirks, and her eyes squint into slits. “You’ll have to tell me how she’s doing, by the way. Anyhow - I planned the whole affair, from the candles to the menu to the music to the fucking bloody flower arrangements!!! Every last detail down to the letter I planned for your 25th birthday party, and that dreadful Amelia just shat all over it!! So when I was thinking about what might be the best thing to do to celebrate you marrying your first love I thought...why not make sure it all goes so perfectly right this time?”

“Cora, that’s...that’s so thoughtful! Thank you!” 

Her long, toned, tanned arms pull me into a tight embrace, and I let my hands grow comfortable with the soft cotton fabric of her jacket as I press them into her back.

"Of course. Now, the thing is...you are absolutely not going out tonight dressed and looking like that, and so I got us a room at a hotel...it's a surprise. I've brought my makeup and all my hair supplies and we are going shopping!"

I squeeze my friend in a tight embrace one more time, grateful for all the trouble she's gone through. It really seems as if despite the trouble she's had (specifically with her ex husband) she hasn't changed for the negative at all. Life hasn't seemed to hit Cora hard, and I admire that so much. I have become pretty hardened to life as I've grown older, and I've lost a lot of the cheerful warmth I used to have as a result. 

"You're not serious. A hotel? Oh, honey...you didn't have to do all that!" 

She pulls away, but she keeps on grasping both my hands and leans into my forehead. Her sparkling blue eyes let out a laugh she won't allow out of her mouth.

In a low, hushed voice she says, "Did you think I was going to leave you to the Mother Superior here to get you ready for your wedding, Maisie? I couldn't live with myself!"

I can't help but laugh at the way she calls Rosemary a nun. She really is a nun, isn't she? Just as Cora said, she's always been a little old church lady.

"Well thank goodness for your forethought, because I wouldn't have even thought about that. I'd have just gotten ready on my own."

"I know you would have, but I want you to look like you paid for it. You're not going to, though, so don't even offer." Cora leans over and looks around and behind me at Rosemary. She doesn't have to tell Rose how much she dislikes her... it's very clear on her face. She's steely eyed, and all the girlish mischief and friendly light are gone from her. "Rosemary, I hope you don't mind that I only rented one room with two double beds. I wasn't sure if Maisie wanted to share a bed, but you're welcome to book a room of your own if you'd like, or stay here. Whatever you want to do."

Although there's definitely a part of me that is taking joy in seeing Rosemary look so plainly hurt and rejected, I can only savor it for a moment before thinking about how sad it would make Syd to see his beloved sister look so sad, and I can't live with the thought any longer before I wave my hand.

"It's alright. I don't mind sharing the bed."

Cora looks a little surprised, almost like she was expecting me to simply let Rosemary be excluded. As much as I'd love to carry on our evening without Rosemary, she is Syd's sister and I owe it to him at least to make sure she's having a good time. After all, she was prepared to host us all at her house. 

"I mean...I would certainly understand if you ladies would prefer to spend the evening on your own. It wouldn't trouble me to stay behind. I'll be able to go to the wedding, at least."

There's that temptation again, to tell her she might as well just stay home and let us run around like a bunch of 20 somethings, but every time I'm tempted all I can picture is Syd's face when he heard about it. No, Rosemary has to come.

"Nonsense. Come on Rosemary. You can come with us." 

She smiles at me...a grateful smile, a genuine smile. It's different from the other times, when she looked phony and like there was something fake or insincere about it. She wanted to come, and I think she probably thought I would have let her stay home. I don't blame her. Maybe I've been too obvious that she isn't my favorite person.

"Sure. I'd love to. Thank you for sharing your bed, Maisie. That was...sweet of you to offer. Really rather sweet of you."

"Oh, you didn't think I'd just let you sit here alone on the night before I marry your brother, did you?"

For a minute it looks like there might be a hint of sadness in her eyes...the same eyes as Syd's, almost, except somehow she has more wrinkles around her eyes…or maybe it's just easier for me to see hers than his. But it's as if she really was on the verge of tears at the thought of having to miss out, and I can't stand it. I can't stand seeing anyone look like that.

"Well, I know I'm not exactly your favorite person…"

Understatement of the year, huh? 

"Look…" I drop Cora's hand and walk over to Rosemary, and now I grab hold of her hand instead. 

"No matter what happens between us we are family now, and so you're obviously welcome at my bachelorette party."

Cora pipes up, interrupting what's become a very awkward moment for me...I don't want Rosemary to come. I wish I had the spine to tell her to stay home and let me go out with Cora and Judy, but I don't. 

"I'm going to go out to my car and get my makeup, and I'm gonna put some on you, Mays. Then you can be glamorous like us, especially after we've gone shopping."

I look back at Rosemary again, and she looks awkward. Like she is insecure. I guess I never thought her appearance was all that important to her, given that she doesn't ever do anything with it and has all but given up on looking even halfway attractive to anyone else. 

"I'll come with you," I spit. Even if we aren't going to put any makeup on Rosemary I have to get away from her right now. Her energy is stinking of jealousy, bitterness, loneliness and hurt, and I have a feeling that nothing I can do can fix it completely. Therefore, for the moment, I need to make it not my business.

Cora and I walk outside into the dusk, slinking down Rosemary's driveway like we're sneaking around. 

"Feeling bad for her, are we?" 

"You can still read my mind, Cora."

"Oh, and you're still too nice to everyone. Don't worry so much about Rosemary. She'll be a mean, lonely old biddy no matter whether she tags along with us or not," she says matter of factly as she hands me a pink trunk full of makeup and then grabs another one, a gold train case on wheels. She's expanded her arsenal, but I guess that comes with going into business for it.

"I can't help it. I'm not doing it for her; I'm doing it for Syd. He'd be upset if he heard that his sister spent the night by herself while we partied it up in some hotel, and I can't live with the thought."

We lug (and roll) the makeup trunks toward the house, but Cora stops before we go inside and smiles at me.

"I'll put some makeup on her if she wants it, okay? If it's important to you."

"Thanks," I say as I grab her free hand, "it's not super important to me, but if she wants some I'd rather she just got what she wanted. Remember it's for Syd, not me."

"I know, dear. You've simply got to let me meet him sometime, yes? I've heard so much from so many people, but there was only that one day, at the studio…"

I wave my hand again, indicating that's the last thing I want to talk about... because it is!

"I know. I remember. You really have a knack for picking up on the stuff I want to talk about least," I tease, recalling our conversation at the coffee shop where she brought up Jane, who nobody talks about anymore after the accident.

Cora giggles and drops the handle of her train case and pulls me in for a tight hug. I smell her floral perfume, most definitely a high end perfume that I wouldn't be able to talk myself into spending money on (despite my interest in all things girly and pretty, perfume is one thing I just don't understand) and I stop for a moment to caress her soft blonde hair.

"We don't have to talk about anything you don't want to tonight. Oh, what was I thinking walking away from you? I simply don't understand how I stumbled through these past years without my best friend."

We squeeze one another for one more minute before going back into the house, and Judy and Rosemary are on opposite sides of the room: Rosemary is sitting cross legged on her chair with her ugly little yappy dog on her lap, and Judy is practically backed up into the wall looking as uncomfortable as somebody could possibly look. Could it be Rosemary is perhaps a bit racist, and I've just never noticed? I'd expect Judy to be able to better read that than I can. If tonight goes wrong in any way…I can't even think about it. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it … if we come to it. Which hopefully, we won't. 

"Well, we're back! Cora, what time is our reservation for dinner?"

"Our reservation is at 7:30. It's 5 now, so I'd like to be done here by 6 so we can go shopping and make it to dinner on time. Rosemary, would you like some makeup on too? I did it for a living for years, and so I won't mess you up."

Rosemary shrugs her shoulders as she strokes her dog's fur and stares discontentedly into space.

"I'm not much for frills," she says. "You two have all the fun. I'll just stay here and talk with your...friend." 

"I'm sorry, my name is Judy," she says, and she sounds so restrained and tightened up that I have to imagine that Cora talked with her beforehand about Rosemary and asked her to behave herself. If I were Judy I'd have a hard time too: Rosemary is exhausting, and it must be doubly hard to be civil after the way she just said 'friend' like it was acid dripping off her tongue. 

"Right. Judy. Well, I'll stay here with Judy while you ladies fuss. I'm sure we can think of a way to entertain ourselves."

Rose's tone is so sour that I feel like I've just sucked on a lemon. If she didn't want anyone to come then why, when I asked her about this, did she tell me she was just fine with it? I would even think that she'd be relieved not to have to host everyone in her home, but what do I know? I'd rather everybody stayed in a hotel if it were me.

"Speak for yourself. I want to be where the action is," Judy says as she sidles up next to Cora and I. 

I can't tell if Judy's following us because she wants to hang out with us, or if she doesn't want to hang out with Rosemary. All I do know is that from what I can tell Rosemary looks even more dejected now, like the entire evening is ruined even though I can't imagine why she'd feel that way.

Cora leads me away with her free hand on my back, and Judy trails behind us. I can still feel the taste of sour, overripe lemon in my mouth even though we've left Rosemary sitting with her ugly little dog in the living room and have moved into the guest bedroom. When I sit down on the bed Cora shuts the door, lets out a long exhale, rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

"Well, if that wasn't tense what was?"

"You can say that again," I sigh as I push my hair out of my face. "She's something else."

"Is she always so pleasant?" 

Judy's straightforward way initially strikes me as difficult to navigate, but I'm not sure why, because I admire that kind of quality in a woman. I gaze over at her one more time as Cora is busy buzzing around her supplies and picking out colors, and I am once again struck by the incredible muscular tone of her long, sinewy thighs and the way they look so casually slung over one another. I can't help but wonder what they look like without the pants. With skin such a perfect shining dark chocolate she couldn't be anything but magnificent naked. Cora's a lucky woman.

"You betcha," I drone. I wonder if I sound as sarcastic as I hope I do, because this is day to day life with Rosemary sometimes. Nothing satisfies her, and she's sour all day at that point. "She's pretty difficult to deal with, as much as it pains me to say. I stay quiet for Syd's benefit, because I couldn't bear to upset him with my petty squabbles with his sister, but sometimes it does get to be a bit...much."

"She seems like the self-righteous type. My way or the highway. The 'god' type."

Cora's swatching some different foundations on my arm, and I watch her eyes as they gauge each shade for accuracy and blendability and everything else you look for in a foundation. She knows, though, that at our age good on the arm is one thing, but anything can settle into your crow's feet.

"She goes to church every Sunday, so you're not really far off from the truth. She doesn't try to convince Syd and I to come with her though. That right there is a fight she'd never win."

I notice Cora's icy blue eyes right now as she primes my skin for the foundation she chose, and I notice they look just like Syd's do when he's painting: hyper focused, alert, tunnel visioned, possessed. It's oddly beautiful, and I can't think of a time all those years ago where she looked nearly so dedicated and so absorbed. But now...now all these years later, there's passion in her eyes when she does this. Passion that was missing when she was with Roger.

"We aren't god types, either. I never was, but you know that. Remember the fight I had with my mother over having the wedding in a church? Oh she would just die if she saw what I've become," Cora says with a laugh as she steps back and squints, probably to check that the foundation hasn't settled into any of my wisdom cracks (that's what I've tried to call my wrinkles to make myself feel better about them, although Syd swears that I don't have any).

"Excuse me, Cora Ann Harlow, but any mother that wouldn't be proud of you is not a mother at all. After everything that you've done in your life? You walk out on a rich, famous asshole without a scene. You take his ass for everything he has got, you spend none of it, you work your way up to work for yourself doing what you are good at, you then invest the money in your own business and succeed. Your mother should be beyond proud of you."

"Yeah, really," I echo. "You're an inspiration, Cora. You're a businesswoman. Do you know how many women dream of being successful business owners? You earned that. So if you loving this gorgeous, amazing woman would negate all of that for old Constance Hardbroom then well…fuck her."

Cora's cheeks redden, she smiles, nods gently and giggles. Her modesty is betrayed by a shrug of agreement, and a knowing smile. A silver blonde spiral of hair dangles carelessly from her updo as the light glints off the diamond stud in her ear.

"Thanks, guys. You're right. I've done very well in life, and my mother isn't here to see it...I feel somewhat sorry for her."

The rest of the time spent on my makeup passes much the same way, with some chatter and laughs, some secrets, and some bullshitting about Rosemary. I have a sneaking suspicion that she may have been listening from the other side of the door because when we went out into the living room she seemed to be attempting to find something to do rather than actually doing something. I'm not sure if I care all that much. I tried to keep it to a bare minimum, really, I promise. 

Cora always loved to choose pinks and browns for me when we were young, but it seems like she's gone with a more daring palette this evening: she's given me more of a chocolate and cinnamon brown look on my eyes, delicately lined with a thin line of black eyeliner. I'm afraid it might be too young, but I still think I look awesome. Rosemary's jaw dropped when she saw me. I like to think maybe she was going over some line of church lady thinking in her head: well I never...you know.

"Off to the store! Maisie, where's a nice place to shop around here?," Cora asks with that excited little song in her voice.

I've made friends with that nice salesgirl Brooke who sold me my wedding dress and have been giving her business here and there when she has things I like on days I'm out and about. 

"There's this nice independent place down on 4th Street called …actually, it's called Jane's Bridal Et Al, funny enough. They sell wedding gowns, but they also have regular boutique clothes. It's an interesting setup... I've been shopping here and there, you know. As if I could ever stop buying clothes."

"Well, Jane's it is. Now, into my car, all three of you. I refuse to let anyone else drive. Especially not you, Maisie."

"You know, my driving has improved in 30 years, my friend," I tease, and she sneaks her arm through mine as we head out the front door. Rosemary trails behind everyone, shuffling along holding her weird old lady purse in both hands. She's taken out her pigtails and taken to her signature fluffy lifeless tucked behind the ears look, the 'I gave up on myself after I had a kid' look that baffles me as somebody who's always been pretty high maintenance about my appearance. Maybe it's a negative quality, but it's been drilled into me so hard that I can't quite seem to let go. Besides...it has its benefits.

The ride to the boutique is tense whenever there's a gap between Judy, Cora and I talking to each other...when it becomes painfully obvious that Rosemary is staying out of the conversation on purpose as if she's miles above us in her sanctified purity. I heard her scoff before when we were gushing about what kinds of clothes we'd like to buy, as women who enjoy dressing up are wont to do, and as women who disregard it are wont to misunderstand and judge. To be fair...I judge the way she doesn't care, too…

Cora parks right in front of Jane's…we aren't sure if it's legal, but who cares? Not me. Not tonight, anyway. I've been really wanting a nice night out like this, and Cora knew exactly what to do. Nothing is gonna ruin this night: not some traffic tickets (which I'd just pay anyway), not my wicked sister-in-law, nothing. Especially not Rosemary. I'll be damned before she has any sway over what we do. As far as I'm concerned she's only along for Syd's benefit.

Something isn't right about Rosemary, is it? There's something very, very off about her, have you noticed? Is she just really that upright, or is there something else going on with her that we don't know?

I wish she'd stayed home. It would be great to talk about this with Cora and Judy, but it is what it is.

Cora opens the door for me, and I step out...trying to do my best to avoid Rosemary I slip my arms through both Judy's and Cora's and we saunter into the boutique. I don't pay attention to where Rosemary is. I don't feel it necessary to concern myself with what she's doing when she was treating us that way on the ride over here.


	35. Rick - Cambridge, 1969 - David and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick describes the scene taking place when Roger comes back from dropping Syd off at home.

_What a fucking scene, yes?_

_Anyone with half a brain could have told Maisie and David that Syd was going to come after her. I don't know why I neglected to do it...it's probably because I hardly interfere; I just watch and listen. Nobody wants my input anyway, and I suppose I just don't care to get involved with other people's problems. I have enough of my own. You know how it is. Lately it's been hard not to get high._

_Anyhow…_

_I got word from David that Roger had to take Syd home after he showed up and sat down on the big lunk of a rock in the front yard. He sat down right in the moss in his crusty red pants and staring into the window, haunted and searching for his only love (I just don’t get it! Seriously, she’s very pretty and very nice, and maybe I just don’t see it...but then again, I don’t see many women other than my Jan, you know, and so perhaps it’s sort of what like what makes me adore her the same way, and they aren’t likely to understand it, either). He hasn’t properly bathed in weeks, it seems, according to what David said he looked like. He probably stinks to high hell the way he started to when we dumped him. The hygiene is always the first to go, it seems, unfortunately for everyone around the afflicted._

_But to get back to where we are: Maisie, of course, went into one of her... fits (as she does…and we don’t judge her. I don’t judge her, anyway, nor does anyone as far as I’m aware...as grating on the nerves as it can sometimes be) and had to be removed from the room before David asked Roger to come get Syd and take him home._

_I wonder what the two of them got up to, anyway. None of us ever really did get to see or hear anything but some giggling between them. I’m convinced they were lovers, aren’t you? Has he told you? I know you can’t really tell me, as it’s perhaps my only job to tell you, but unfortunately I’m not a mind reader and I have no idea what Roger’s told you. I’d love to know, however._

_Seriously, are they simply fucking dumb? Thick headed, they are, honestly. The lot of them, just so stupid and lacking foresight. You know? How does nobody here think…"this bloke is off his rocker and obsessed with this girl. He'll probably come looking for her"? Are all four of these people really so off their rockers all at once that they can’t think so far into the future as to realise that an obsessed jilted lover will spare no expense or no energy? If Jane left me...I don’t think I could live without her. She’s my only one, you know. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life, and so no matter what happens to my band I know on some level I’ll be okay. Still, I hate to be in a band with such fucking thick headed (although loveable) knobheads._

_Jane came today, thank goodness, and she's seated beside me. I've got my arm slung over her porcelain shoulder, and I'm enjoying observing this with her. We may as well be a couple of cats the way we sit and watch with cynical, tired eyes._

_We got the call about Syd some time before. Amelia called Jane after David told Nick. You know how the chain of gossip goes (and thank goodness it does). I saw it fit to come check on them, of course, though Jane was reluctant to join me. She felt the scene might be too tense for her to handle, but agreed eventually. I don't often ask for her to come with me, but she usually does, if only to get out of the house, perhaps._

_A knock comes on the door suddenly: Roger's signature knock (three times in quick succession). What in the hell would he come back here for, and why's he already left his best friend (I think probably ex boyfriend as well) so soon?_

_Ah yeah. Well, I think we know why, don't we? He came back to check on his lady love while his sweet girlfriend waits at home for him. He comes here to another man's house, a man who's likely to date Maisie by the way, and he's going to spend every minute he's here longing for a moment when she looks at him the way she looks at David. He's going to look at her and feel starved of the feeling of her body wrapped in his long tree limb arms the way he held her in France on the beach. You know, the day he saved her. Got to play the hero, he did, and he loved every second of it... though he probably felt tortured by the way she barely showed any emotion about it beyond giving him that hug. I know that’s why he drank himself stupid two nights in a row and tore up that cabin, by the way. David probably knows, too. I know for sure that Jane knows. We talk about these people all the time. It’s so fucking difficult not to. They’re so transparent and predictable with everything they do._

_Poor chap, though, Roger._

_David opens up the door: Maisie's still in his studio on the sofa, recovering from her fit. He'll want to go sit with her, I suspect, and perhaps see if she'll talk to him. I often wonder if he'll ever take her in his arms the way he wants to, if he'll ever work up the nerve to actually do it. Probably not, at least not in the near future._

_"What are you doing back here, mate? I'd have thought you'd have stayed with Syd."_

_"Yeah, well... Syd only wanted to sleep. I saw no reason to stay. What use would I be? Not like I'd get in the bed with him, or anything."_

_"Alright, so what …You know, did you need something, or…?"_

_It couldn't be clearer that Dave doesn't want Roger here, which I know must hurt poor Roger... especially because I'm sure he came here for reasons that are actually pure, if you can believe it. He cares for Maisie...I don't think it's only (though it is mostly) selfish, possessive love; he goes out of his way in a manner I've never quite seen before._

_"Yes, well, I suppose I'd like to perhaps talk to...to Maisie, and see how she's holding up. According to what you told me on the phone she was really quite upset."_

_"What's it matter to you, then? I didn't call you to help me with Maisie: trust me, I'm doing a good enough job of it on my own and don't particularly need the help."_

_"I didn't come because I wanted to help you. I came to check on your... roommate."_

_Well, that was just so venomous, the way the word oozed from his mouth like toxic waste. He really tries to convince himself that they’re only roommates. If only , Roger, hm?_

_If Roger could straighten himself out and tell her how he felt he could probably make her forget all about David. If he could show her the way he loves her, and think of someone besides himself, he could make Maisie the happiest woman in the world, I’m sure. He’d love her in a way only Syd ever could at his best. She’d never go a day without his adoration in a perfect world, and in turn she’d give him what he needs: a sweet, loving woman to replace all the love he never got from Mummy. He loves Maisie because she’s the mother of the group, and he, like Syd, never got what he needed from Mum, but Maisie belongs with David because he doesn’t need a girl to be his Mummy and fix his issues. He just wants a nice girl to settle down with, and for all the histrionics (which again, we don’t judge her for - anyone would break down into histrionics after they’d been through what she’s been through) Maisie is one of those. She deserves a nice guy to settle down with, not a bitter, angry shell of a man who can barely exist without poisoning other people._

_But alas, he’s stubborn, selfish and stupid, and so by the time he ever admits that the problem in all his relationships (including this one) is him he’ll have been abandoned by pretty much everyone. I know it, you know it, we all know it, and it’s better just to make our peace with it and as a result enjoy the ride of watching it happen in real time._

_I can feel the tension in the room... perhaps even smell it. Jane shudders next to me and burrows closer into my body. She's scared. Any kind of tension is enough to scare her off, but the scuffles these two get into can be traumatic for her. Perhaps I'd better send her outside or on her way and spare her the pain._

_"You can be on your way or go outside. It's alright...you don't need to deal with their rubbish, you know," I whisper in her ear as I pat her back._

_"Thank you, Bear," she mumbles with the slightest hint of affection in her voice. Her warm ginger hair falls around her face, framing a cute elfin visage covered in tiny brown freckles and grass green eyes framed by dark rectangular rimmed glasses. My Jan is the most fascinating creature on Earth. One has to dig to find her treasure, but her treasure is worth it. She gets up, kisses the top of my head and saunters out of the house without a word to anyone. Ah, the old Irish goodbye._

_"I don't think she wants to see you, really. She's in a delicate state enough as it is."_

_"Well then she can tell me to leave," Roger hisses through sharp gritted teeth and a clenching jaw. He nearly advances on David, but chooses instead to stand up straighter than David is standing to be taller, more imposing. He's going to get his way, no doubt._

_Even though they're snarling at one another like lions rivaling for a lioness (though she isn't quite one of those, she's more of a scared little prey animal, but they don't want to hunt her, or at least David doesn't) their voices are hushed: barely above a whisper. Barely audible. Just loud enough to hear one another, and that I can hear them, but soft enough to protect her from their bloody stupid posturing. Two dumb apes pounding their chests. And for what?_

_"Fine, but you'd better not get up to anything in there. You leave her be, do you understand? I'll not have you making an occasion out of this when she's so fragile the way you often make occasions out of things."_

_Ouch. I can feel the heat of that atomic burn from over here on the sofa._

_"Yeah, right. I wouldn't dare be nice to a girl."_

_"That much, of course, is obvious."_

_Roger balks and stares into David's eyes. David stares back at Roger like he's saying 'go ahead', and he is saying so without actually saying so. Roger scowls, and David grins and shrugs his shoulders. That's when Roger shoves past him and goes to knock on the door to see Maisie. David takes a deep breath in and flings the door open and goes outside with a cigarette. Oh, dear Maisie is certainly not going to like anything about that._

_I'm now able to sneak close to the doorway, as I've found myself alone and Roger's left the door open. Silly. Thoughtless, really._

_I hear mumbling, so I sneak closer, and I find I'm able to peek around the statue David has next to the studio to see them. What a thing of fucked up, desperate magnificence this situation is._

_I can't see Roger's face, but I can see Maisie's. Her cheeks, streaked and swollen by tears, are flushed red. Her eyes are bloodshot and her hair has fluffed into something almost inhuman, or at the least primitive. She's staring up at Roger...more like peering up at him… she's frightened, but whether she's frightened of Roger or because of what happened isn't clear. I can tell he wants to reach for her and wrap her in his arms. He wants to rock her until she falls docile into his arms like a ragdoll because she's so frightened and needs his comfort so badly. It’s a common male fantasy that we don’t often tell women about, the need to be needed by them. Don’t buy it when a young man tells you he doesn’t want a woman who needs him, ladies. He does: whether he’s a stony, cranky bassist, a chilled out, mellow guitarist who hardly anything gets to, or a whimsical fairy boy artist, he wants to feel needed. He wants to save you. Maisie is rescuable. She’s an unassuming damsel in distress who’s been rejected by family and only wants to be loved. What’s for an insecure twenty something year old man who’s terrified of himself not to love about a woman who’s weaker than he is? One can hope that perhaps one day she won’t be, but for now she is, and they are young men who haven’t yet learned that these types of women ultimately throw men aside to learn to rescue themselves. As older men perhaps we stop wanting to rescue wilting flowers and grow tired of the constant theatrics. Who knows?_

_Anyhow, I can see from Roger’s body language the way he’s longing to reach for her: he practically does before I see him stop himself. His arm extends ever so slightly toward her, but he pulls back at the last second before he makes a fool of himself and she pushes herself out of his grasp the way she always did. And when he drops his arm I watch his shoulders slump like the air’s gone out of him with just one more missed opportunity to love her. One more opportunity to be her only one flushed down the drain with every opportunity he once had that he chose to throw away. And now he sulks around like we’re all supposed to pity him for what he consciously chose to do. Pathetic._

_"I'm sorry about Syd."_

_"Why are you sorry, Roger? It's not about you. You didn't do anything. Syd did."_

_"Well, perhaps I should have been keeping a better eye on him. I don’t...I don’t like to see you get hurt."_

_Maisie leans down, elbow pressing into her knee, and squeezes where her nose meets her brow. She shakes her head, and she exhales with an exasperated sigh. No matter how Roger tries, and he tries very hard to show her how he feels because he’s too much of a bloody coward to ever tell her or she either hates him so much that she can’t see it. Or she’s stupid. Perhaps both. Nevertheless, she doesn’t want to have to deal with him making things about himself. Still,it took a lot for him to say that … probably more than any of us could ever know … and she brushed him off._

_"Can you not make me reassure you that you did nothing wrong when I just calmed down after my abuser showed up here? Please?"_

_"No... that's not…"_

_"Then what else is it?"_

_"I just...I wanted to check on you. David told me you really were so very scared."_

_"Why would you want to check on me?"_

_"I don't know," he says as he stares down at his emerald green ring. I can picture his face, shielded only a bit by soft milk chocolate hair, eyes downcast. Wishing he could only tell her why he really came._

_"Well, thanks, I guess, but you really didn't need to walk all the way back here from Syd's for that."_

_Oof._

_"I know…" his voice trails off. The air rushing out of his tires could blow my hair back. "...but I did."_

_That's the most vulnerable and earnest I've ever heard Roger say. She heard it too, I realise, as when he finishes speaking I see her tremble and she closes her eyes... perhaps not wanting to look at him, perhaps out of exasperation._

_"I mean...thanks."_

_"I'll keep him away. You don't need to worry about it. Every time he comes back...if …If he does... I'll come get him."_

_"Thanks."_

_"Maisie…"_

_He whispers her name, and she looks up at him again, her eyes still wide with fear._

_"What?"_

_Her voice though is cold. Detached. Uninterested. Poor Roger._

_"I'm glad...that you weren't outside. That you didn't have to talk to him."_

_"Me, too."_

_"Are you...okay, though? Like do you feel less afraid now?"_

_She pauses, and her shoulders rise and fall. She sniffles a little, and moves her hand into her fuzzy mess of hair._

_"Yeah, I think so. Thanks for taking him home."_

_"Anytime."_

_"And I guess thanks for coming back."_

_"You're welcome. I'm glad you're okay."_

_"Thanks."_

_David comes back in now, appearing to have calmed down a bit. He peers around me into the room where Roger is sitting with Maisie on the sofa, and his eyes glaze over as he watches the two of them like an icy eyed hawk._

_"Where'd Gingy slip off to?," He asks carelessly. Gingy is Jane's nickname amongst the band group, although she barely tolerates it and never encourages its use._

_"You know," I say, twiddling my thumbs, trying to make it seem as if I wasn't spying on them in there, "she can't handle the chaos. The spats you two get into."_

_"Ah, that wasn't a spat."_

_"Was so, mate, sorry to tell you."_

_"I wasn't trying to have a row with Roger. I just don't get it. Why come all the way back here?"_

_"Do you want my honest opinion?"_

_"Not particularly, chap. I'm not in the place for opinions. I'm going to go in there."_

_See? I told you none of these dunderheads wanted my input. I could've told him exactly why Roger came back here:_

_He's in love with her, you dolt, and you know it. That's why you jumped on him that way when all he really did was come to check on her. You really think timid little scarecrow Roger is going to attack her in there, David? I'm sure he'd like to. I'm sure he dreams of just taking her where she sits, and I'm sure that in his fantasies she submits like the sweet little good girl he wants her to be._

_David sits next to Maisie on the sofa, leaving her between he and Roger, right where she is most of the time these days. He smiles at her, and she looks back at him...her smile is nothing like any look I've ever seen her give Roger. That's when he turns back facing front and I see him gaze down at his lap, perhaps sneaking jealous looks at them out of the corner of his eye._

_"You alright in here?"_

_"I am. I've calmed down, mostly."_

_"What do you say we venture out to the living room and have some coffee?"_

_She stops to playfully consider, and then stands up and follows David into the living room. Roger stays seated on the sofa, his fingers fiddling with his ring and his hair dangling like straw in his face. He wanted so much more than he got, and he had to watch David get it. No wonder Roger is so angry. Maisie is so warm when she wants to be, but if she doesn’t like you, well, you end up really knowing about it just like Roger knows about it. I bet he can hardly stand the pain he feels when he’s forced to face the reality of the situation he’s created for himself._

_And the way Maisie looked at David, and the way David looked at Maisie... Roger is probably crushed._

_He probably craves her in a way that perhaps I couldn't understand, given that my darling craves me the same way I crave her. Roger craves Maisie, he covets and longs for her, but she barely takes notice. She is so lost in David that Roger walking for a half hour just to check on her has virtually no impact._

_He could run to her, quite literally run miles to her, and she'd barely realise._

_What torture._


	36. Maisie - Cambridge, April 2006 - Jane's Bridal Et Al Boutique

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie, Cora and Judy shop and try on clothes while Rosemary keeps herself removed from all the fun.

I have to confess that Rosemary’s sitting on the bench pouting watching us all try on clothes and admire ourselves, and that I have given up doing anything other than allowing her to do so. 

I tried to get her to join in with us, but she kept on refusing, and I’m not sure what I was supposed to do other than just let her sit there, despondent and snooty, and rolling her eyes at everyone. Every once in awhile she’ll look down her nose in disapproval over the Sudoku she’s doing (can you believe that?) and pretend to acknowledge us with a damning, but faint praise: ‘conceals the middle rather well, doesn’t it?’ Just like my mother. Fuck, I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut, but you know I promised I’d be good. I’ve been promising I’d be good for such a long time now that you’d think it would be second nature, but it’s not. She's so snooty and hiding her insecurities by pretending to be above us and our silly girl games. God forbid we want to look nice. 

At least right now Cora and Judy are trying clothes on, anyway: I decided to take a break because I can’t stop my eyes from being drawn to that weird dress Syd stares at every time he comes in here. Remember, I told you about it? How he always passes it and jokes about wearing dresses, and I can tell he isn’t joking? I’m going to be objectively honest and tell you that if I were imagining it on anyone else I’d hate it, but if I were going to dress a man of his size and build it would be an empire waist cotton dress with no cling except around the chest, which is exactly what this is, and so I know that if Syd were to want to wear a dress it would be this one because he already knows exactly what he’d look best in. Beyond that, of course, it’s totally his style, like it’s got his name all over it. The straps are halter straps: white ribbons that cross behind the back. On one side there’s just a little frill of fabric, and it’s just the right amount of absurd for Syd to have noticed and appreciated it. There’s no reason for it to be there, it’s just there, and our house has a lot of oddities like that. (I still lose myself laughing at the end tables in the bedroom with the useless knobs and handles on them.) Though it's gathered in the bust for a wearer who has breasts, if this is large enough it wouldn't matter to be flat chested because it clings right where it should regardless of bust size. A jade green bit of fabric made to look like a bow set against the white backdrop of the rest of the fabric is accented in the middle by three light green buttons. The skirt is a kind of cornmeal yellow: maybe the kind of thing you'd see in an older woman's kitchen. But on Syd it would be more like a sunflower yellow than an old lady's kitchen yellow, and the swirling green and white flower on the yellow looks whimsical, not clumsy. I lift up the last part of the skirt, a patchwork of five different fabrics, all different shades of yellow, white and green: some paisley and some solid and billowing just enough for the skirt to be playful, and yes...this is the one. 

I feel a hand on my shoulder and before I notice it's Cora's I jump. She steadies me, and then laughs.

"What's this, then?"

It's not that I think Cora would be judgmental or see anything wrong with Syd wearing a dress, but I also don't know how he'd feel about me telling her, so I'll cover my ass somehow. 

"I was just checking to see if it would fit my friend Donna from back home. She's into these new hippie clothes."

"This one? You sure?"

I glance into the dress and find the tag on the inside, and thank god I was right and it's as big as it looks: it's the right size for a very large woman, and so I think it should fit Syd just fine. 

"Yeah, she'd love it. It's just her style. She's...a funky type, I guess." 

I steal the dress off the rack and bring it up to Brooke at the front desk to save it for later. I'm not sure what possessed me to buy it at first except that I couldn't stop thinking about the way he always stops in front of it when we're in here, and I watch as his eyes always dart right to that green and white flower on the yellow part of the skirt, and the corners of his lips turn up in a coy smile when he always says the same thing:

Wouldn't it be a gas if I wore a dress one time? It would be just hilarious, I think.

Every time without fail he says that as if he always forgets he's said it every other time. And it didn't occur to me at first that maybe he wasn't joking, but here we are. I ask Brooke to please wrap the dress, and when she asks who to make it out to I tell her not to worry about a name.

"Darling, you haven't picked anything yet," Cora says with a little bit of a warning tease in her voice. “Are you having trouble deciding?” 

“No, I just got lost looking at that dress for Donna. I’ve got a few things in mind for myself, but I haven’t settled on anything yet.” 

“Well then, do let me see, hm?”

“I have them hanging in my dressing room. You could sit and wait for me to come out and show you, but Rosemary…”

“I saw her. Can you believe that, sitting there with her little book and pencil? How rude could one possibly be? I’ve never really seen anything like it before. I couldn’t imagine going out with other people and doing number games while they all shopped and had a good time.” 

“You could imagine doing that if you could imagine ever wanting to make other people feel bad on purpose.”

“You think that’s what she’s up to?”

“Oh, absolutely,” I say with certainty. There’s not a doubt in my mind that Rosemary is intent upon making sure that I’m miserable tonight now that we’ve come here to make ourselves look attractive and left her to only wonder what it would be like if she could work up the nerve to even try. If we were younger I would have sat next to Rosemary and coaxed her into trying on a nice dress for hours, but now that I’m older I have no patience for women who are her age and still play these games. If she doesn’t want to try to include herself there’s really nothing I can do to convince her. However, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t still expect me to, and there’s the problem I am certain we’re having. “She doesn’t want to play dress up with us, but she doesn’t want us to enjoy doing it, either, because then she’d have to face the reality that not all older women are insecure and drowning in our fear and hatred of our own bodies, and that it’s really just a her problem.” 

“Speak for yourself. Sometimes I drown in my fear and hatred for my own body,” she admits as she slings another white dress over her shoulder and we walk together back toward the dressing rooms. Judy’s leaning against the wall waiting for us, staring at Rosemary like she’s got five heads (as if two would have been enough), and when she sees us return I notice some light coming back into her eyes where just a second ago there hadn’t been any. That’s the way she looks when she sees Cora coming: like she’s just found the sun, and I would know it anywhere because that’s the same look I see in Syd’s eyes, and if I could see how my eyes looked when I saw him coming I bet they’d look quite the same as Judy’s do now. 

When Judy sees Cora coming she wraps her tightly in her arms and makes a fuss of kissing her long and deep right in Rosemary’s field of vision, and I have to stifle a laugh as it starts to escape my lips. What makes it even more funny is that Rosemary’s actually taking the bait. I’ve never seen her look so horrified and out of place. She looks like she might throw up just from watching Cora kiss her girlfriend. I can’t imagine being so closed off that I’d make that kind of face at people just for kissing one another. What does Rosemary do all day that this is still offensive to her in 2006? What did she spend her youth doing? 

“Who doesn’t, am I right?,” I say as I grab one of the dresses I’d stuffed into a dressing room and hold it up for her to look at. One of them, a daring black cocktail dress with a steep price tag that I might finally have to admit I might be too old to wear, is the one I’m really hoping she tells me I look great in, but I’m dreaming. It’s a small black cocktail dress (one can never have too many), but it’s got long lace sleeves, a feature the small black cocktail dress does not usually come with. The sleeves are covered in small black flowers, the same small black flowers that adorn the bodice of the dress, and there’s also a few rhinestones sprinkled here and there, making it sparkle just the littlest bit in the light. 

The other, the one I’m pretty sure is the sensible choice, is a violet peplum dress, again with the lace because I guess I’m just in the mood for lace this evening. The bodice and the peplum piece are both overlaid with lace while the skirt has no lace overlay and the sleeves have no fabric under the lace (it should be interesting to see if I can fit my arms inside this lace - it’s famously restrictive). 

“Well, hopefully not you, my dear, because you’re going to look fabulous in either one of these, and I don’t want to hear another word about it!” 

Cora pokes my nose and I shake my head as I realize she’s teasing me because she remembers how much I complain about the way I look in everything I try on: I always did, and I always have, and I was probably going to if she didn’t say anything about it. I shrug, playfully pout at her, and move past the three of them into the dressing room. 

The full length mirror on the wall is a fair weather friend: it really always depends on the lighting, your hormone levels, how much water you drank that day, whether or not you’ve shit at all in the past few days, whether you missed maybe three workouts last week, or it could even be your medication...whether or not the dressing room mirror (or any mirror, really) likes you or whether she thinks you’re just the biggest, fattest, saggiest bitch she decided to look at that day. Who knows what sort of day it’s going to be for me? 

I really hope it’s a good mirror day today... after all, I’m here with one of my best friends, her beautiful girlfriend, and the sister of the love of my life, and we’re ready to go have dinner at a nice restaurant and then spend the night in a hotel getting high and having fun. And then tomorrow I’ll stand at that courthouse and I’ll say my vows to the love of my life (I’ve been working on them since the night he proposed). So I strip off my clothes...my top and my leggings, and I stand in front of the mirror, unafraid and unashamed of my body. For now. For this moment. Because for the moment it doesn’t look so terrible to me. Maybe it will be a good mirror day. 

I half expect my hips to be uncooperative when I slip the purple dress over my head, but they’re not. The dress goes down around them just like it should, but I’m unhappy with the way I can see my own visible belly outline through it. That happens with almost every dress I own, I’ve noticed. As usual, the peplum looks nice on my figure, and I’m half considering buying it even if I like the black one, but you don’t need it, Maisie. You really don’t need it. You’re only buying this one dress to go to dinner...otherwise, you don’t have much reason to wear nice dresses like this here in England. So yes, this dress will do if the black one doesn’t work, but otherwise you have to put it back!

I step out of the dressing room and watch Cora shrug her shoulders.

“Saving the best for last, then?”

“Do you not like it?”, I ask as I notice a twinkle in her eyes. Cora always believed in doing what was more daring (except when it came to Roger - and mostly when it had to do with fashion).

“Oh, darling, of course it isn’t that I don’t like it. I even like it on you! It’s only that I know that isn’t the one you want, of course. That’s the one you thought you should choose.” 

“You remember how I shop for clothes.”

“It’s the most annoying thing ever, of course I remember it. Maisie always picks out two dresses: the one she wants to wear, and the one her mum is in her head telling her she should wear. She’ll always try on the one her mum tells her to wear first and save the one she doesn’t think is going to look good on her for last, and it usually always looks better. So I’m guessing that all these years later it’s still true. Go try on the black one, then. Let’s see it.” 

She’s right: I have always tried on the dress I really wanted to wear last, and that’s probably because I always do expect it to be too small (thanks Mom). 

“Alright, FINE!” I say just like I did when we were girls and we’d drag our shopping bags around the city while the boys rehearsed after Roger started to let Cora come with us when we all went on tour with them. Cora and I (and sometimes Jane and Amelia also, though not usually) would raid every boutique in whatever city it was and would leave hand over fist full of bags (much to the chagrin of our boyfriends, who without fail got angry at us later - though David found himself over the anger within a few minutes, usually), and every time we shopped I would always do this exact ritual. 

I step back into the dressing room and hang the purple dress back up on its hanger. Somehow my arms did fit into those lace sleeves quite nicely, and so maybe Cora’s right (as usual in these cases) that the black dress is going to look nice on me. 

Here I stand again, in all my aged glory. I try really hard not to get down on myself for getting older: after all, none of us can help it, and considering all the options I have available to me as a woman with money I’ve done relatively little to stave it off, and I look pretty damn good for someone who has done so little. (“Little”, of course, you know by now is relative - I’m sure to some of you my routine doesn’t seem like ‘very little’, and I want you to know that I understand that - I meant plastic surgery, because I haven’t had any). I’ve got stretch marks, it’s true, and my thighs aren’t nearly as toned as they were when I was young. I squeeze my inner thigh fat...I’m not sure if it’s lovingly or hatefully, or somewhere in between. Maybe just a begrudging acceptance of its existence. I guess Syd isn’t complaining, but that never stopped me. None of the three of them ever complained, but I’ll never stop complaining...that’s how it feels, sometimes.

I slip the dress over my head, and push my arms through the delicate thin lace of the sleeves, and I can feel my skin scratching against it, the flowers and rhinestones sliding over my skin with the tiniest scrapes of pain that are so, so worth it as I feel the way the sleeves aren’t snug like I thought they would be. In fact, they fit the way they probably should, and then I realize the dress itself isn’t having the trouble I was convinced it would coming over my hips, and I zip the dress and then stare right back into that mirror, triumphant, ready to tell her she can go right on and fuck herself and her bad mirror day. 

And there she is: Maisie Wells, New York Times published opinion journalist, and she looks amazing in this dress she should absolutely not be wearing to the bachelorette party she shouldn’t be having (and never thought she’d be having) with the best friend she never thought she’d see again and avoiding an argument with the sister in law no one wants who she never thought she’d have. You can tell she works out, I hope. I hope. Yeah, you probably can’t. That’s alright - she does! She works out, and she can tell when she wears this dress she’s way too old to be wearing!

Now that I’m done making fun of myself I step out of the dressing room and let Cora, Judy and Rosemary feast their eyes upon me in the best choice I’ve made today that didn’t involve someone else. 

All three of them: Cora, Judy and Rosemary… their eyes dart right to me as I leave the dressing room. Cora claps her hands and jumps with excitement, Judy nods approvingly and gives me a thumbs up, and Rosemary? Well, Rosemary looks positively incensed. She was hoping it was too tight, I bet you anything. She was hoping I was too fat to fit into it, and that it would cause such a big stir that the whole night would have to be scrapped. Unfortunately for her that isn't quite what happened. I like the dress on me: no, I love the dress on me, in fact, and I hope it makes her as miserable as it makes me happy.

"I knew it! Didn't I say so?"

Cora’s face is lit with joy, and Judy can’t stop smiling at her. That’s when I know they’re meant to be married, and I’m giving it about six more months before one of them realizes it and proposes to the other one. Again my eyes dart toward Rosemary and she widens her eyes now as she realizes I’m looking at her and awaiting her reaction to me. Almost like a stubborn toddler, she refuses to give it. Instead, she goes right on sticking her face in her stupid book like the selfish, haughty, jealous old bag she is. 

“Do you really like it?”

I know she does, but come on. I really need to hear her say it again. And Judy too, and if Rosemary says something...well that’ll be even better.

“You know I like it, you lunatic! I love it. You’re wearing it out. Don’t even bother to take it off when I pay for it.”

In case you hadn’t noticed by now, I really can’t stand when other people pay for my things. This comes from years and years of having everyone pay for my things: when I was able to make my own money, and then when I came into my trust and my inheritance, I accepted no handouts from anyone. For awhile David even had to fight me to buy anything for me. It’s a power thing, and Cora knows that. What’s she up to? Nobody is buying this dress for me because I’d already planned on buying it myself.

“Now come on. I have my own money, Cora. You don’t have to buy this for me.”

“Don’t you be that way tonight, Maisie Wells. I know you have your own money, but I have…” She pulls her white Coach wallet out of her purse and shakes it around a little bit, maybe showing it off to Rosemary, but definitely indicating that she’s got her own cash: “...Roger Waters’ money.” 

I remember a conversation Cora and I had not long ago about how her lawyer had figured out a way for Cora to completely bleed Roger dry of all of his money, and I remember when Roger went broke, but he never said it was because Cora outsmarted him and took everything. I don’t remember what he told David, anyway, but I know it wasn’t that. I would have remembered that. She saved most of it, but I guess she pulls it out for special occasions. 

“You didn’t.” 

“I took it out of my savings account specifically for tonight. I still get alimony, you know. I think he’s terrified if he stops the payments I’m going to come after him again, and you know what …I just might.”

“As well you should, girl, now let’s get going out of here before we all spend more money,” Judy says, her voice dripping with sweet honey. She’s got that African accent that’s to die for, especially with the British twang to it. After a few minutes of arguing, Cora eventually convinces me to let her use her dirty money (not that I actually disapprove - when Roger went broke and had to stay with us that was certainly not a good time for anybody, but I went through a special kind of hell trying to grit my teeth every time I had to deal with his stupid living habits and his moronic, childish complaints…and of course, as I’m sure you’ve been told by everyone but Syd...Roger sucks.) to pay for my dress, and she spritzes my hair one more time with my sea salt spray before we get back into her car and head to dinner. 

As we’re leaving the store I notice Rosemary trudging behind us: head down, wiry framed glasses slipping down her thin mouse nose, lips pursed. She’s clearly not enjoying herself, and she can tell we aren’t enjoying having her here, either. I definitely haven’t gone out of my way to make her feel welcome, however. Couldn’t hurt to try. I think she’s gotten the message by now. So I stop, squeeze Cora’s hand and whisper:

“I’m gonna make an attempt here with her. I’ll meet you ladies in the car.” 

Cora returns my hand squeeze, and with a playful grin she sends me off and pats my ass when I turn away from her like ‘go get her’, and I clutch my shopping bags as I grit my teeth and try to make conversation with this lady I have nearly nothing in common with except we both know Syd (or Roger as she tells me - and I’m sorry, I can’t call the man I’m in love with Roger … no matter how much she yells at me about it) very intimately. 

“How are you, Rose?” 

“Hm? Me? How am I? I’m sorry, May, are you talking to me?” 

“Who else would I be talking to who’s named Rose?” 

She stops and stares at me for a second, and I can see a flash of pure disgust in her eyes. Rosemary’s cold brown eyes are descending upon me like I’m a rotting carcass and they’re a flock of starving buzzards. If looks could kill I’d be in pieces all over the ground. I don’t think anyone has ever looked at me that way before...not even my mother the last time I ever saw her, and I said some terrible things that night. 

“I’m not sure. It couldn’t possibly be me, though, because you’ve treated me as such a ghost all evening. I’d be surprised if you actually were speaking to me at all.” 

“I’m sorry, really. You just didn’t seem interested in what we were all doing.”

“Well, you never invited me into the room with the three of you. When you were getting your makeup done.”

Are you kidding me, Rosemary? You’re a woman in your 50s, for god’s sake. You shouldn’t still be seeking reassurance like this. Oh, the things I wish I could say that I’ll never be able to say…

“You seemed perfectly happy to sit with your dog. I’m sorry, I really am, I guess I just thought if you’d wanted to be a part of what we were doing that you know...you would.” 

“You could do with being a bit nicer to me, you know. If it weren’t for me asking you to stay you and my brother would never have been able to get married, most likely.” 

Okay, I don’t know about that, but … 

“You’re right, Rosemary. I’m sorry. Won’t you come enjoy dinner with us? I wish you’d let me help you find something to wear…”

Almost immediately after the words start to leave my lips, like lightning she looks up into my eyes again with that same disgust that she hit me with earlier, and it hurts even worse this time because I was going out of my way to be nice. I’m really trying. I feel like no matter what I do with her I can’t win. I’m either not nice enough to Rosemary, or I’m too nice. I’m either not friendly enough, or I’m too friendly. I’m too loving with her brother, or I’m not loving enough with her brother. It becomes difficult to take her seriously after awhile. 

The look in her eyes frightens me so much that I’m drawn back to the little joke fantasy I had earlier of Rosemary stabbing somebody, and suddenly the victim becomes me specifically. A flash of terror runs through my body, leaving me vulnerable and afraid in front of her, and for a second when I look at her and I see the disgust and the hatred that’s radiating out of her like a beam of wretched, blinding sunlight I wonder ‘is she actually capable of it?’ And when I wonder that, for that second...it seems like yeah, she is capable of it, and not only is she capable of it...she might enjoy it, too. There’s a coldness there that I never noticed before, not to this extent anyway…

“The last thing I want to do is fuss over myself like you. You are so vain, you and your friends, always worrying about how you look and what you wear. That isn’t me. It wouldn’t have made me feel any better: in fact, I would have only felt worse. Perhaps you should be a little bit more like me.” 

“I’m really just trying to be friendly, I wasn’t saying you aren’t good enough the way you are. I just thought you’d have fun if you joined in, that’s all. Really, I’m glad that you’re here. It’s good to have my family with me before I get married.” 

She brightens up a little bit. Now it doesn’t look like she’s about to kill me, but rather like she’d have to stop and consider it for a second before she started stabbing. I try to get the image of her with that gigantic, sharp carving knife out of my head, but it’s sticking like glue and I’m not sure why. I think my dislike of Rosemary is getting to the point where I’m really starting to imagine things. She’s not a killer - there’s no way someone like her could ever actually kill someone. If anything she’d be a stalker: somebody who threatened, and who wanted to, but never actually did anything.

She’s really just kind of harmless though. Frigid, true. Obsessive, walled off, weirdly traditional, stuck in her ways, perhaps...maybe pretty unfriendly. Not a killer, though. Look at her there, she’s … basically harmless. 

“I’ll try to be a little more sociable at dinner. I just don’t know these two very well, is all, and Cora was just so mean to me when we were young…” 

“Cora’s a different person now, and Judy’s great. It’ll be fine, Rose, just sit by me and I’ll help you get into the conversation.”

It’s always best to kill your enemies with kindness because you never know how much they might need it. This is my last ditch effort. I’ll be as sweet as pie tonight, and if it changes nothing...at least I tried.


	37. Maisie - Cambridge, 1969 - David and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and David share some sweet, but awkward moments in the kitchen until they're interrupted by some sounds outside in the darkness...

_"What a day, huh?," David muses as he helps me serve the chicken and broccoli stir fry we managed to put together. If I hadn't complained about his reluctance to actually put any kind of spice into it we wouldn't have pulled it off quite so nicely, and he smiled when he admitted it before. I was gracious. After all, he really only fought me half-heartedly on it. British people don't know anything about food. No wonder these boys are all so skinny. In America men aren’t skinny like this, at least not the ones I know, but all the British boys I’ve met are so skinny that it’s ridiculous. I’m pretty sure no one in this country enjoys food (and with the way they cook, it's no wonder)._

_"Something like that, yeah," I say. I've been cranky all day, if you couldn't tell. Wouldn’t you be, though? I’m so sick of this. I just want to move on with my life somehow, in some way. I want to be able to be free…_

_But I miss him so much. Syd, I mean. I miss him every day. I want to be free of him, but on the other hand I am so sad without him sometimes that I just can’t bear it and I cry myself to sleep. If anyone in Syd’s family cared at all about him, including his stupid sister Rosie, then maybe he and I could be together right now. It should never have been my responsibility to take care of him in the first place! I tried calling his mother so many times, but she always hung up on me. She always told me to get him off drugs first, but even after I did she insisted he’d be fine and that he was always a little off. I sometimes feel like no one cares about Syd but me and the band, and none of us can even help him anymore. He’s too far gone, I guess... and I can’t...I can’t help him, I can’t see him anymore, and my heart is broken._

_"You know, my friend," David says, forcing me back to reality as he speaks and he spoons some rice onto my plate and I drop some salad in his salad bowl, a weird funk lingering between us, "I know you've had a very rough go of it today, and I don't need you to be happy or be nice or anything if you don't feel like it, but I'm not your enemy, yes?"_

_"I know, David. I'm sorry. I'm not mad at you."_

_The air melts a little as he breaks the silence and states the obvious. Finally._

_I hate that I’ve been so mean to him today. He tries so hard, and sometimes I feel like no matter what I do (and this isn’t all the time, only on days like today) I can’t seem to let him in, and it’s not his fault … he really does try, and he doesn’t ever seem to run out of patience with me somehow. I don’t understand him. Sometimes I feel like I beat on his chest on purpose just to see if he’ll get mad, and he just … doesn’t. How does he not get mad? (I don’t actually beat on his chest!!!) It’s … really kind of ‘zen’. I think David meditates before he goes to sleep, but he never talks about it._

_"I know you aren't, Maisie, and so I’m not angry at you, either. You just don't have a lot of patience because you're all dried up emotionally from the day we've had today. So perhaps you should have just let me make dinner like I suggested?"_

_Ooh, it makes me so crazy when he does this, though! When he acts like he knows what’s best for me. I know he doesn’t mean it to insult me or make me feel stupid, but wow, do I hate that! I feel like I have to spit that right back at him. He’ll probably laugh at it, anyway._

_"Or you should have let me make dinner like I suggested."_

_And he does exactly as I thought he would and giggles at me, his sweet pouted lips twisting up into a smile in one corner of his mouth. He pouts and pushes some shaggy hair out of his face, and looks down at his plate. All pretenses removed he seems nothing short of extraordinary. His smile is so warm and irresistible...I almost feel like I'm not a worthy recipient of it, but if he wants to give it to me….I'm not complaining._

_"Well, that went nowhere, didn't it?"_

_"Seems that way."_

_Even I can feel the deadpan in my voice like it hit me right in the chest and knocked all the breath out of me. I wonder how he feels having to be on the other end of it, not knowing my intentions. I guess I've been alone a lot until I met these people, and so I never thought before how maybe my tone of voice or my words made others feel... instead I guess I just stopped talking. I had one or two friends, of course you know I've mentioned Gloria, but beyond her I've really only had a handful, if that. And forget about boys...before Roger no boy had ever even looked at me that way before. But that seems like nothing now, that look Roger gave me. I feel like I've become a woman since then._

_"Sit down, would you? Please? You've been at it all day."_

_David's soothing voice and his gentle presence bring me right back to Earth, just like they always do._

_He's going to get so tired of me someday, probably, but it's going to be wonderful getting there._

_"But...if I sit down and I stop doing things I'll just…"_

_I'll just think about Syd. And that’s exactly what I don’t want to do._

_"You don't have to say anymore."_

_"It's just that I can't stop seeing his face, and I…"_

_Just as I thought I would if I opened up about what was going on with me, I can't even begin to say what I want to say without crying. I've already started to choke up; I can feel my throat closing and my lungs starting to heave before I can even start to move my lips to say Syd's name. If I want to get through dinner without another meltdown I can't say any more._

_He looks on, waiting for me to finish...his beautiful blue eyes so wide with concern...I feel kind of like I'm being sucked into them. His lips are so full and pink, and so luscious, I'd love to kiss them, maybe. Who am I kidding? I'd definitely like to kiss them. It's especially weird when it gets all mixed up with … you know. With everything else. Am I moving on too fast?_

_"I just...look. I'd really rather not talk about that. I just want to enjoy this dinner that we managed to make."_

_Now he smiles at me...and his smile... it's heart wrenching. It makes me feel like I've been stopped dead in my tracks. I want to die. Like I could...I could die and it would be okay. Is that weird? I don't think that's normal._

_"That sounds about right to me, too. Especially considering it was like pulling teeth."_

_"I was the one pulling teeth," I tease, "because you people don't …."_

_"I know, I know," he says with a warm laugh, "we don't know how to cook."_

_"Well, yeah," I say._

_"If I remember correctly…" he pauses, he winks, and then pulls out my chair for me, "...you never cooked a thing before you moved in with Roger, did you? You were like a spoiled little princess weren't you? And you can only cook because you taught yourself. Did your mother cook your food?"_

_"She didn't," I admit._

_"Who did?"_

_"Well, our maids, of course."_

_He laughs at the frankness with which I spoke and rumples my hair. I think I'm supposed to get mad at that, but I'm not mad. It just makes me feel silly. I probably sound so silly talking about having maids. Now that I've lived without so long I really think it's pretty silly, too._

_"You say that like that's normal. That's not normal. You're a good cook because you taught yourself. My theory is that white people just can't cook without help."_

_"Italians can cook."_

_"Italians aren't white."_

_"You're ridiculous. They're white in America."_

_"Are they?"_

_"Oh, never mind. We're just swiping at each other again now."_

_"You're right. I'm also right."_

_"David, stop," I laugh._

_"You're distracted though, aren't you?"_

_I take a sip of water and when I swallow it I close my eyes to feel every drop of cool water flow down my throat and into my entire body, invigorating every inch of me. I let a laugh slip out when I finish, and when I open my eyes he's trying not to laugh while he's got a mouth full of food._

_"Yeah, I guess I am. This is good, though," I say as I take a bite of chicken. "We did a good job."_

_"Yeah, I guess you were right about the spices. Well, now I know.”_

_For a few moments David and I go on eating without saying a word because it’s turned into that same lulling, comfortable silence, but now...now neither of us can seem to stop smiling even though we were sniping at one another really since Roger and Rick left before. You know, I don’t know why Roger coming here put him in such a bad mood. Usually Roger doesn’t piss him off that much without doing anything first. I mean...all he did was come back here. The only person it really inconvenienced was him, and it didn’t really bother me at all. It sure bothered David, though...in fact, after Roger left his entire face and everything...it was just dark. Like, I don’t think I’ve seen him that way in awhile. He was even calmer than that when Syd was outside. Why would he get so angry at Roger just for coming back? I almost want to ask, but we decided just to drop everything and enjoy our meal, didn’t we? It’s not my business, anyway, the band politics. That has really nothing to do with me, and so I guess if David doesn’t want to talk about it I don’t want to pry, anyway._

_"Jane left pretty suddenly today."_

_That's the most I can find to come out with. I'm not sure why I feel awkward, but it's...not terrible. I don't mind feeling awkward, but maybe he does. I hope I'm not making him feel awkward…_

_I am really proud of this chicken, by the way. It's delicious. I'm also really proud of it because David looks like he's enjoying it, too, and that kind of makes all the fighting worth it. He kind of grunt laughs at nothing and pushes another forkful into his mouth like he's thinking of something funny, but doesn't want to say what it is, or something, and it's really got me off my guard. I can feel myself blushing...my cheeks are hot...and I look up at him to see if he's looking at me too...and he is. He's taking a drink of water, and his dirty blonde hair is brushing his beefy shoulders...they're so strong and perfectly built: not too much, but just enough definition that you can tell how strong he is. I let my eyes rove over his broad chest in that soft blue t-shirt and the way his forearm flexes as he moves._

_"Jane does that sometimes. Rick is crazy about Jane, you know."_

_*And I think Rick is one of two people Jane can talk to!"_

_"That's just her way, I guess. She knows who she is. You've gotta admire that."_

_“That’s true. What do you think happened, though?”_

_“Who knows? Jane does that once in awhile if she gets nervous. Maybe Roger and I lost our cool with one another a bit, and she doesn’t like any kind of confrontation or anything, and so she left when we got confrontational.”_

_So he admits it: he and Roger ‘lost their cool with one another’. Interesting. I really wish I knew what was up between them. Anyway …_

_God, he’s just … he’s just gorgeous. Look at the way that shirt clings to his body, and the way his beard makes him look even bigger and even more protective, masculine and safe. That's what David is... he's safe. As soon as I saw Syd...I mean, after I was able to resist the urge to run to him and wrap him in my arms, rock him forever and tell him I would never ever leave him again and let it pass, and after I was able to swallow the terror I inevitably felt seeing him look the same as he did when he locked me up…all I could think was 'Where's David?'_

_I'm gonna have to masturbate after he goes to sleep. This is getting harder by the day. Not jumping on his cock, I mean. It isn't only that, you know. There's just a way that we are... we're both Pisces, it's strange...I know it's probably bullshit, but it makes too much sense not to have any significance here._

_I'm tingling underneath my silk panties...wet and engorged, unfortunately rubbing against the stiff crotch of my jeans in just the right way where it's really, really not helping. My nipples are hard now, and I'm clenching my legs shut... trying not to feel everything my body really wants me to feel._

_“You look really, really…” I stop before I let anything else slip, and watch as his face turns a deep shade of red. I can’t tell whether he’s unsettled, uncomfortable or wants me to go on. I decide to go on: I'm not accustomed to being this bold, but what could it really hurt? I already started digging the hole, right? “...Really good.” Is ‘good’ the best I can come up with? What about ‘gorgeous’ or ‘ stunning’ or ‘breathtaking’...all things he is? Soulful, intense, but warm, friendly...safe. A sexy, tempting Nordic god._

_“Thanks. You do, too,” he says in a low, timid whisper...like it was difficult for him to tell me. Like he means it. He sounds surprised, too. He might be just as surprised as I am that I came right out and said that. I hope things don’t change between us now. I mean...there’s always the chance he’s just been nice this entire time, and that he really only does see us as friends...that’s what I told him we were, right? That’s what I thought we were._

_“Really?”_

_“Yeah. You always do.”_

_Our eyes meet for a second where it feels like my breath’s being stolen from me. I can’t breathe in, nor can I breathe out: I’m stuck. I’m stuck in limbo, and I don’t think either of us have any clue what we’re doing. We’re just kind of … existing here together. We don’t even really need to be talking about anything to enjoy our time together, I think, because all we need to do is be here together like this…I’ve never felt this way with someone. With Syd I always felt like there was something new and exciting every day before things went downhill, but with David I’m so comfortable in our quiet routine that I feel like I’m thriving for the first time in a long time._

_The wind starts to howl outside, and just as I get up to close the kitchen window (now with fall coming on it's chilly near dinnertime) something comes down with a crash in the backyard, knocking over something we had there, and then rustling the leaves like it's running away. My chest is seizing; I might have a heart attack. Is he back? Did Syd come back? He couldn’t have come back already. I...I almost expect him to come back, but not this soon…_

_It's an instinct: I fall to the floor and cover up my head, praying that he never saw me if he’s back there. David rubs my back for one second before he’s up and outside in the backyard with a flashlight, looking around to see if Syd’s out there. I kneel next to the window, peering out, trying to see if I can see anything. All I can see is David wandering around with the flashlight. He’s looking under things, and behind things, and on top of things. He’s looking anywhere a person could possibly hide. I swear I heard someone run away, but I can’t see anyone. I don’t think David can, either._

_The door slams and David comes back in. He’s shrugging his shoulders, and he places the flashlight back in the supply closet._

_“Must’ve been an animal that knocked something over, perhaps. I didn’t see any signs of a person anywhere. I doubt he came here again, Maisie. I don’t think he’ll come back. And besides, Syd never wandered at night.”_

_That’s not true. Syd and I used to go out wandering at night sometimes before things got really out of hand. Sometimes Syd would just drag me along to stare at landscapes or something. There was never a specific time of day where Syd wouldn’t go wandering around if he felt like doing it…but I won’t argue with David because I don’t have the energy. And besides…_

_He’s too beautiful to argue with. That’s just the plain fact of the situation. Even if I wanted to be right...Syd isn’t here now, so it doesn’t matter. Whatever it was out there that made that noise it wasn’t him, and so I don’t have to worry about it. Nobody’s gonna fuck with David. He’s so strong and broad...I can’t stop looking at him. And his legs...his legs are so strong and thick. They’re not long stalks like Roger’s, but they’re not tiny and petite like Syd’s either: David is all muscle. I think every inch of him must be so solid and smooth. I love the soft peach fuzz on his arms...I want to run my fingers through it. Can he tell I’m soaked through my panties right now just looking at him? I think he can._

_He backs into the refrigerator, and I can’t resist the urge to stare as his strong chest rises and falls like the tide. He’s nervous. Maybe I should back off. It doesn’t seem like he likes me._

_So I walk away and I head toward the sink to start getting ready to wash the dishes, but I turn around to grab a few of them off the table and David is right behind me. His eyes widen like he’s been caught...mine do, too, but it’s because before either of us realize exactly what’s going on I’ve already collapsed on top of him and we’ve fallen onto the floor into a pile. Thank god I hadn’t turned the water on yet … because I can’t get up. I couldn’t possibly get up right now even if I truly did want to try._

_“What just happened?”, I manage to stutter after I finally catch my breath. We’ve been laughing so hard for the past few minutes that I couldn’t even get any words out. It’s the kind of laughter that hurts when you’re done: the aching in your sides that it takes forever to come down from...but you don’t regret the pain for one second. I don’t think a lot of us laugh this hard often in our lives, but maybe I’m just too young to know._

_Either way...I don’t care, I realize as I peer over at him beside me. We’re lying on the kitchen floor like two kids, staring at the ceiling fan and both catching our breaths. You’d think we’d been spinning around and collapsed on the ground, but we’ve only been laughing. I don’t care if I ever laugh this hard again...and now he’s looking back at me._

_"You're just a bit clumsy. That's what happened."_

_He erupts in another hearty laugh, the corners of his eyes wrinkle up in a smile and when he's finished he shakes his head. I can't keep staring into his eyes or I'm going to rip his pants off._

_"Maybe you just got a little too close to me," I snicker at him. I look at him out of the corner of my eye and I notice that he's still looking at me even though I've gone back to staring at the ceiling. So I turn toward him again, and I feel this weird mixture of almost like being lost, but at the same time feeling like I know where I'm supposed to go. Like there's a lighthouse in the distance shining through the fog created by my fucking life before I came here, and I can see where I'm supposed to be._

_I think with David is where I'm supposed to be…. someday._


	38. Maisie - Cambridge, April 2006 - Don Pasquale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls arrive at Don Pasquale for dinner.
> 
> CW: marijuana use

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys I know it's a lot of Maisie this week - sometimes that's just how it comes to me. More variety next week!

So far, my attempts to make nice with Rosemary are working, thank god. It’s getting a little easier to get some warmth out of her instead of the frigid air that seems to always surround her everywhere she goes. I wonder if she wishes she were different, but can’t figure out how to be. Sometimes I worry about that, about falling into frigidity, but I think I’ve avoided it (somehow). 

Cora leads our pack of (mostly) glamorous, unafraid, unashamed older women (and their grandmother...you know, I really don't like the person I am when I think about Rosemary and how she treats my husband and how she makes him feel. I don't like to reduce her to nothing but her appearance and belittle her in a way that highlights her age. I don't. It's just...she makes it so easy) into the amber lit wine cellar that is the dining room of the Cambridge legend Don Pasquale. It almost looks the same as it did on my 25th birthday with the scandalous lighting and the romantic candlelit tables set with soft, daring white silk tablecloths and marinara red napkins: Italia green china plates with delicate, shimmering gold borders. As I turn to survey the room and what I can remember from being here last, I can see it all so clearly: that bizarre, embarrassing blur of a party. We (Cora and I, and sometimes Amelia) made such a huge fuss over planning that party for weeks: Cora had everything organized, we went out and bought outfits, we planned every inch of the menu...it was going to be PERFECT. I mean that evening was supposed to be the absolutely most perfect night of my life (according to Cora), and we were feeling on top of the world about it. It was such a shame, what Amelia did to Rick. Amelia never knew how to handle her alcohol (not that it ever stopped her - she drank more than anybody other than Roger). I don't think I ever really forgave Amelia for ruining my party, either. Our friendship was never the same after that...and her friendship with Jane was completely destroyed. That winter, the winter of the year Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon, Jane O'Malley Wright burned to death crushed under a beam of our cabin in front of the eyes of her husband and the woman who ruined their friendship (Roger and I were knocked out ourselves, and everyone else had run). Amelia was never the same woman after that, although the last time she and Nick came to visit me in Maine they seemed to be doing well.

The maitre’d meets us at the door and Cora gives her name, and we are escorted to a beautiful four person table lit with candles and set with a bottle of pink wine chilling in a bucket. I don’t normally drink, but when I do I always drink wine. If I ever do drink something harder it’s because I’m nervous - even if I don’t seem nervous...I only drink hard liquor when there's a situation that I feel I need to be brave for or that I'm afraid I'll fail at. But pink wine? That’s my favorite because that’s the shit that barely even tastes like alcohol, and Cora remembered. 

“Look at this! Cora, how sweet of you to have remembered.”

“You act and speak as if you’re not this interesting, memorable person. You’re my best friend, Maisie Wells. I remember everything about you.” 

She whispers this in my ear as we hold one another in a tight embrace: a tight, loving embrace we have been waiting to really give one another for decades. What a shame that she and I took until now to come back together. If I could turn back the clock one of the things I'd do is make sure I tracked Cora down sooner. We have so much lost time to make up for in our friendship, and tonight, I hope, is the first of many nights like these.

From behind Cora I notice Rosemary looking on, her big watery brown eyes framed by wire rimmed coke bottle glasses. I wish I could do exactly what Cora did for me all those years ago for Rosemary and sit her in front of a mirror and do something with her face and her hair and her clothes. I know I’m being shallow, and that maybe she’s happy the way she is, and if she were I’d respect that, but I don’t think she really is…is she? She doesn't seem happy, that's for sure.

Anyhow, when Cora and I pull apart I notice Judy’s pulled out Cora’s chair for her, and as she sits down in it she pushes it back in again for her, and they turn to smile at one another. The two of them look at one another as if they’ve never seen anything quite so beautiful ever in their lives, and for as long as I knew Cora that’s all I wanted for her. Judy is driven, successful, sweet, friendly, supportive, interesting, engaging and gorgeous. She’s fun, fabulous and striking, and Cora is one very lucky woman to have met her. Then again, what am I saying? I think I’m pretty much the luckiest woman on Earth, and I’m sure by now you agree with me. 

Our waiter, a harsh looking young man named Jan (most definitely a college student - he looks about 22, has a clean cut of dirty blonde hair and a very pointed, Nordic face, and he looks like he knows quite a bit about something. A little arrogant, maybe.) approaches the table with a pad and pen, smiling sheepishly when he sees us. He probably thinks we look silly, do you think? I don’t care. When I was his age I wouldn’t have found him attractive, anyway, and I don’t find him attractive now, either. It’s better if he thinks I look silly. 

Cora looks up at him and gently touches his arm, and I watch as Rosemary’s mouth hangs agape like she's just horrified that an old Granny like Cora would ever dare flirt with such a young, fine-looking man. Does literally everything that might be the least bit 'alternative' or 'outside the norm' upset her? It’s like she’s … never mind. She’s not important tonight, is she? So why am I letting her ruin my evening already when she's not even consciously trying? Remember, Maisie…be nice. 

Jan blushes when Cora, easily the most conventionally beautiful of all of us (but don't tell her that - she gets so offended) brushes her hand against his arm. I reach over into the bucket and grab my wine bottle as I'm reminded of my fleeting youth and beauty, but Cora slaps my hand away from it. She feigns a funny upper-crusty, posh kind of offense at my blatant disregard for the social conventions, and I laugh at her exaggerated response. 

“Stop that, you! You need to wait because I have a toast planned. You can’t just go opening your wine and start drinking like a sloppy twenty-something. Silly goose.” 

I stare into her warm blue eyes... this beautiful, outstanding woman: Cora is a woman many women don’t want to know. She is tall, thin as she was in her 20s, looks 45 at 56 and could steal your girlfriend if she felt like it just with one smile, whether you're a man or a woman. Not only does she have her famous ex husband’s money, well, she has her own, too, and she knows how to both save and have fun with it. She’s smart, she’s funny without even realizing she's funny, and she’s too nice, too. She’s everything you want to hate, but you can’t, and always was. How lucky I am to have such a friend, and I’ll remember that every day for the rest of my life. I’m not letting her go again. 

“You’re right,” I say as I pat her hand in return for her slapping mine, “I should’ve thought ahead.” 

We laugh, and I notice that Rosemary and Jan are staring at us, both of them waiting with cold impatience for us to stop indulging one another so they can get on with their lives: Jan with his job and Rosemary with her god knows whatever it is that she does when no one is around. That wine is really tempting, especially because when I see the way she looks so completely bored and listless it makes me so angry that I’m starting to slip back into my (at one time) comical vision of her as a cold blooded killer ready to shove a knife into my guts while laughing maniacally. I think I've got a bit of an overactive imagination. Do you?

My blood is starting to boil. This is supposed to be my night, damn it, and yet the entire time I've been worrying about this uptight, mean old lady that I don't even like (and I never call women of my own age 'old ladies'- Rosemary is an actual old lady, and has been since I've met her, and I don't feel bad for saying so). So from now on - if this old, stodgy, stuck up cunt can't do anything but judge us, be unsatisfied and dream of going home to her mini, horny mutt then so be it: she can be miserable. 

I think Cora can tell I'm getting frustrated because she opens my menu for me and gives my hand another pat.

"There, there," she whispers to me, "we'll sneak into my car while we're waiting for our appetizers and take our medicine so Rosemary Repel doesn't bother us so." 

"You always did know exactly what to say," I whisper back to her. Cora's pot is exactly what I need right now to get my mind off of Rosemary and how angry I am at her...and seemingly for no reason. I refuse to allow her to ruin my good time any further. After all, I really do suspect that's exactly what she wants.

*Have you ladies decided on what you'd like to drink this evening?"

Yeah, I have: wine.

"Besides the wine, I think I'll have…"

Cora cuts me off with a clearing of her throat, and when I look over at her face she beams at me, a mischievous gleam in her beautiful ice blue eyes. They remind me of...never mind. I've tried with so much success to keep my mind off of him for the past few months that I've been here with Syd.

"Excuse me...the BRIDE will have…"

"Oh, don't do that!" I laugh with a little embarrassment. "I'll have some water to start, but I'm going to look over this espresso menu and get back to you."

Jan, to my most pleasant surprise, doesn't seem to want to indulge Cora, and I think I might be a little grateful to him for it. After all, Syd and I are trying to be quiet about our marriage. Not that I think this very staid, stoic young man has any idea who either Syd or I are, but just in case…

He nods his head without a word, jotting down my order on his pad with a solemn look: I swear I caught a slight roll of misty grey eyes, but I don't mind. He's probably seen so much of this in his short life. 

"And you, ma'am?"

He looks over at Rosemary next. Somehow, I get the impression that these two would get along swimmingly were they around the same age as one another...Jan does seem like a grumpy old man in the body of a wiry young one, and as I said before Rosemary has always been an old lady.

"Hot water. With lemon, if you please."

Hot water with lemon, if you please. She doesn't even order tea: just hot water with lemon. Jesus.

Another slight nod and jotting down the words onto his little pad, and he does the same with both Cora and Judy, who've both ordered water with their own promises to peruse the espresso menu later. 

Now that I'm able to finally stop focusing on my bizarre, random fear of Rosemary stabbing me to death in my sleep I'm able to turn my focus to the list of appetizers. Almost everything sounds delicious. Fuck it, it's my bachelorette party, and we're spending Roger's money…I want to fucking gorge myself.

"Cora, can we like...eat all of this?"

"I don't care. Eat as much as you want. I'm not paying for it," she says with a flirty, naughty wink. It must be so satisfying to be able to continue to bleed that miserable ratfuck dry into his old age. I wonder what he's doing now, anyway. Probably still doing what he does best: getting drunk and running through a line of women way too young for him while pretending he's some kind of Che Guevara freedom fighter and sprinting around on stage wearing costumes.

"Well, Jan, we are celebrating something very momentous, as I think you guessed. You see, I'm an old lady, and some wonderful gentleman has decided for some reason that he'd like to spend the rest of his life hitched to me. So naturally, I've got to keep myself in top shape as not to lose him to a young thing like yourself, and so since tonight is my last night of freedom why don't you bring me the pan e olio, some crostini sticks, a large antipasto board, some polpetta and an insalata caprese that's big enough for all of us? And yes, dear, this is just to start."

Cora and Judy are in stitches laughing, but both Jan and his counterpart Rosemary Repel (as Cora so lovingly referred to her earlier, and I like the name so I'm keeping it) look like they've never heard something so preposterous in their lives. With how young Jan looks, it's possible that might be true for him, but I know for a fact that Syd's sister has heard far stranger things than someone ordering too much food; she's playing horrified on purpose to try and make me feel guilty. Inside, though, I'll bet she's hoping it becomes a pattern. Rosemary's like that friend who knows you're watching your weight, and that if you lose it you'll be cuter than her, so she's always secretly hoping you'll get fat.

"Really, Maisie, are you sure? You want to be able to fit into that dress tomorrow morning, don't you?"

Although the mousy, prim and proper little British voice belongs to Rosemary, all I can hear is my mother's fake Kennedy Massachusetts accent as she tries in futility to fasten buttons on a shirt she knew wouldn't fit before she made me put it on. When I was a young woman there may have been a time where this was enough to set me off, and I'd either have left crying or have ripped into Rosemary, but I'm older now and that's not who I am anymore. No, I won't cry, and I won't yell. I'll just meet fire with passive aggressive fire.

"Luckily, I've discovered over the years that we tend not to gain enough weight to have our clothes feel tight overnight. Usually that takes a few months of this kind of concerted effort."

I let my eyes narrow on her and her stupid pinched up, faux horrified face, and she rolls her eyes and shrugs her shoulders as her eyes return to her menu. She doesn't order anything, naturally, probably trying to show that not every woman here is a pig like I am. A gavone, Gloria's mother (raised in Brooklyn around Italians) might say. A glutton. Well, at least I'm enjoying myself.

Cora and Judy agree to split my food with me, and Jan leaves to go put in my ridiculous order, probably the biggest order he's put in tonight. I wonder if he's about to go into the kitchen and laugh about me with his server friends. I kind of hope so. After all, I'm sure he needs something to break the monotony of this awful job. I'd laugh at me too, if I were him: some crazy fat old lady walking in here dressed like a 25 year old slut in a dress she's stuffed herself into ordering almost the entire appetizer menu? Fuck yeah, I'd laugh at that. I hope my overeating brings some joy to his day...after all, it does sort of seem like he needs it, doesn't it?

I turn back to Cora, and she taps a blunt wrap package on my leg, indicating it's time to step out into her car to, as she said, 'take our medicine'. I nod at her and smile in response, and her eyes shoot over to Judy, who nods too. Looks like she was already in on the plan. Judy winks at me and scrunches up her nose …just like Syd does. Wow, I miss Syd. It's amazing: we have only been apart for a few hours, but I just can't wait to get back to him. I can't wait to settle next to him on our couch, to wrap my arms around his soft middle and bury my head in his chest. I can't wait to smell the smell of our lavender soap that I made him start using (he never used soap before I got here - seriously, what kind of a 'caretaker' is Rosemary, anyway?), to run my fingers over his soft wisps of white hair and kiss his eyelids. 

"We're going to step out for a bit, Rosemary. Ciggies. You understand," Cora says, shaking a pack of cigarettes that's clearly got nothing but a bag of pot inside it. "Some bad habits are just so hard to break, I swear." 

She giggles, and it's the same giggle she used to use when she'd tell Roger we weren't going shopping (we were always going shopping). That 'I'm completely innocent' giggle, the one that lets you know Cora's up to no good. Rosemary hasn't been lucky enough to actually know Cora, and so to her it probably just sounds like the minor self deprecating humor of an ashamed smoker. As well she shouldn't know what it means... she's totally the type to report people for smoking, anyway. I know she hates that I do it. 

She gives a curt nod as Jan returns with her hot lemon water and places it in front of her. Something about the way she picks up the cup with her pinky out like she's some kind of polite high society lady who's sitting atop her gilded perch above us trashy wasters fills me with an ice cold rage, and I'm clenching my teeth trying not to blow up at her. This isn't at all how I want to feel tonight, and so, squeezing Cora's hand, I stand up and sling my jacket over my shoulder: my black Ferragamo jacket...the first designer piece I ever bought. I used to think it was such a big deal to own it, but now I just think it's a big deal that it still fits.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," I whisper through clenched teeth. 

I wonder what Syd and his friends are talking about, or doing right now. I wonder if he's missing me, too, or if they're having so much fun he's forgotten for awhile.

You know...now that I think about it, no matter how modern and open minded I am, and no matter how much I love Syd and I trust him...I think if he had told Ian he wanted to have a stripper come over, deep down I might not have been as 'okay' with it as I thought I would be. I would never have been angry at him for it because I told him it was okay, but I'd maybe have felt a little inadequate. Maybe even surprised by it because Syd has just never been that type of person. I do have to admit that while I find the idea of Syd getting a lap dance from some hot little twenty something college student funny in the abstract, in reality maybe it would have violated my perception of who he is. He's just so innocent, and that's one of the things I love most about him. So perhaps... I'm glad he said no.

"Don't you worry, Queen, we are on our way out." 

Cora slips her arm through mine and I can feel her long, graceful fingers squeezing me, comforting me. She can tell how angry I am, and how angry I don't want to be. 

"Her stupid ass is not worth this kind of a bad mood, you know, Maisie. I've met some miserable people in my life, but she's by far one of the most miserable. If her brother is anything like her…"

I cut Judy off before she can finish speaking because I want there to be absolutely zero illusions here: Rosemary and Syd have absolutely nothing in common.

"He isn't. He's nothing like her, and if you knew how she behaved when we were young you would be even more surprised they're related at all. I'm not sure how they even came from the same family."

Finally we've stepped into the car and Judy sits in back so I can sit next to Cora.

"Now," Cora says with a smile as she pulls a perfectly wrapped blunt out of the wrapper she tapped on my leg earlier, "the first hit goes to our bride, of course. And in the cigarette pack I've got more for the hotel."

"You know exactly how to make me happy," I say as I grab the blunt from her. She lights it for me as I stick it in my mouth, and with a deep inhale I suck the smoke in. It's been awhile … I haven't smoked in months because the secondhand smoke makes Syd vomit uncontrollably (this was a very unpleasant experience that led me to never smoke around him again back in mid-January...turns out he had to stop smoking weed in the 70s after the vomiting started happening all the time - I've never heard of anything like that before or since). It burns as it hits the back of my throat, and I suck my breath back even harder to get it down as far as I can. I pass the smoking blunt to Cora and as she takes her first hit, I finally exhale. 

The end of the blunt burns as she inhales, and I exhale a beautiful thick cloud of white smoke, and I can feel it hitting me right away in all the right places. My head feels lighter, and the pain right in my diaphragm I was developing trying to swallow every word I am going to have to say to Rosemary someday finally passes. I feel like I've been waiting forever for this (I'm a multiple times a day smoker, after all) amazing, arresting feeling of my head swimming in euphoria and my body loose and free of tension. I really, really needed this.


	39. Cora - Cambridge, 1969 - Cora's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora and Maisie come up with some autumn plans while hanging out together.
> 
> CW: marijuana use

_So, I had no idea about Roger being so brave and saving Maisie when they were in France. It just hasn't come up, and I'm not sure why Roger didn't tell me. Maybe he's just being modest. He's not the type to talk himself up, you know. He's not a bragger. That's one of the things I love most about my boyfriend: he isn't too far up himself. He's humble, you know? He doesn't think too much of himself: he knows he's not the best at everything._

_Maisie's here today, and I'm so excited because it's a day she actually came without David, which is so nice because usually I can't get him to ever leave him alone. I had to practically beg him and promise him I wouldn't let anything happen to her (and the little imp still doesn't believe David likes her! Can you believe that? She's so bloody smart, she has to be simply in denial!)._

_We're sitting in my room...she's lying on my bed flipping through a fashion magazine I got in the post, and I am sitting on the bench of my vanity debating joining her on the bed to look through the magazine with her. Maybe it would be weird if I did...do you think? I don't think she'd think it was weird, but what if I did?_

_Oh, well. We'll go for it, I guess, and see. There's no harm in it. Why do I have all these reservations about it, anyway? I just want to sit next to my best friend on my bed. That's totally normal. I've done that with almost all my girlfriends, but it never felt so strange to ask, or indeed just to do it, until now?_

_I sit down next to her and gaze out my open window into the backyard, and I look over all the pretty houses in a row outlining the street, and my patch of backyard with its quaint white fence separating my patch from my neighours'. It's such a nice view, isn't it? I love living in the suburbs; it's so calming to me because of how tranquil everything is. The houses are all so close so I never have to feel unsafe or totally alone, but there's enough space that I feel I have a good amount of privacy, as well. And it's so positively wonderful that Autumn has finally arrived with its rainbow of orange, yellow and red leaves, crisp cool air and pumpkin and apple picking!_

_"Can I look at that with you?," I ask as I watch her tiny finger flip a page, and her eyes scan over all the different models. I wonder which one she thinks is the most beautiful, which one she'd have a crush on._

_"Sure," she says, patting the spot next to her, and I move in closer to her, and lean in to see the clothes she's looking at. I can smell her cocoa scented body lotion and the light, floral scent of whatever she used on her pretty curls today. I look her over, and I love the way she's so intently staring at the different models, but I hope she isn't comparing herself to them. She does a lot of comparing herself to other girls, I think, but I hope she doesn't compare herself to me. Even if some people might think I'm prettier than her I don't believe in that anyway. I love women and think all of us are so pretty, but Maisie is actually very pretty and she doesn't see it. I think that is so sad, but also...maybe in a way it makes her all that much more wonderful._

_"I like that one's sweater," I say, pointing to a cute ginger girl wearing a pink turtleneck and orange bell-bottom pants. Her hair is in that funny American style the girls there do nowadays where it flips up at the shoulders._

_"It's nice. I like this one better, though, and she's beautiful like you."_

_She points to a pale pink peasant top that falls off the shoulders of the leggy blonde supermodel who she thinks looks like me. That's very flattering, but I don't think so! The top clutches at the model's waist, and I can only imagine how it would look on Maisie. She knows exactly how to dress for her shape, which is something a lot of girls half her size can't manage let alone the ones that are plumper than her._

_"All the girls in this catalogue are beautiful, but thank you, you flatterer. That top would look just divine on you. I like the way it falls off her shoulders."_

_Maisie closes the catalogue, and with a little bit of a huff she throws it down on the bed. I can always tell when she's down, but today it seems especially bad. I'm pretty down, too. I still feel sad that I wasn't allowed to come to France, but all the other girls got to go. Do you think Roger is embarrassed of me? I know I'm not as smart as he is, and that it bothers him. Do you think that's why he wouldn't bring me? The other girls like me, or at least Maisie and Amelia do. Lord only knows about Jane...she's a bit of an odd bird, isn't she? Always scampering off like a mouse at the slightest hint of commotion and never talking to anyone. If it's not that I'm not very bright, though, what is it?_

_"Do you have anything to smoke? I just feel miserable."_

_She rubs her temples, her small gentle hands circling around as she shuts her eyes tight. I watch as she purses her sweet, pouty lips in a grimace that looks like she's in pain. Oh, I just want to hug her so tight and take it all away. My poor, dear friend. If only she never got mixed up with that terrible Syd Barrett character they all seem to idolise so much in this band. Can you imagine? The way Roger talks about him...I simply cannot bear it! I always ask him to please not talk so nicely about that poor, sick young man in my house. Regardless of how afflicted he is, he still put his hands on a woman, you know, and Roger goes about as if it never happened!_

_I bet you anything it's that terrible boy bothering her again: sitting outside her house waiting for her to come out. He just sits and sits there like a bump on a log: just...plopped there like a dingy, dirty, nasty little garden gnome no one's sprayed down in ten years. Oh, do listen to me...he can't quite help being how he is, can he? Something's happened to him, Roger says. Something's happened to him, but he never says what. Part of me wants to feel pity for him, and perhaps I would if I didn't have to watch my poor girl suffer at his hands even now that he isn't torturing her anymore. Where is his family, anyway?_

_"Oh, you poor thing. Do you want to talk about it? Can I make you something to eat?"_

_"The last thing I need to do is eat," she whines, patting her cute little tummy._

_I swat her hand away from it and place my hand on it instead, and I decide to treat it with all the love she doesn't give it._

_"Stop it with that, you imp," I say as I rub it for her, and she collapses down onto her back on my bed. It's perfect the way it is, you know, all soft like that and there's really not much of it anyway which is why it's so infuriating that she complains about it so. I asked Roger if he ever minded, he said he liked it, too...so... she's the only one with a problem with it. I can tell you that David doesn't mind._

_"It's not even that. I don't want to talk about my problems. It's not even a big deal, I'm just...well, tell me what's going on with you."_

_"Well," I say as I lie down next to her and keep my hand on her tummy for awhile (I'm going to force her to love it if it kills me, I tell you!), "I'm finally going to meet Roger's mother…"_

_She places her hand on mine and I turn my hand over to lace my fingers with hers, but our hands are still resting on the perfectly soft pillow of her belly._

_"I told you he was serious about you, Cora," she squeaks as she rolls over onto her side and clutches my hands, and giggles. I love the way her eyes wrinkle when she smiles._

_I can feel my lips curling up into a smile, but something feels a little fake about it, unfortunately. If only she knew the fights we've had over this, but she does, doesn't she? I had to have told her some of it. Especially last week when I came here in tears because he told me he was 'having doubts' again. I was so distraught, but she gave me a big hug, and she told me that Roger didn't mean it … Or at least she was kind enough to agree with me when I told myself that to try and make myself feel better. It was only last week he was having doubts, and after the fight we had he finally told me that I could meet his mother._

_Sometimes Roger just makes me so unhappy._

_But the whole time she's just made me feel like I might be okay, and that he and I might really be okay. It's so nice of her, really. Sometimes I feel so alone. I feel like I am knocking on the door to Roger's heart all the time...offering him gifts like my heart and my soul, and he just keeps saying 'yes, yes, hang on just a moment,' but he never answers the door. I feel like I'm waiting patiently for him to come out and let me love him, but he's just too afraid. It can be very lonely, but every time I tell her she makes me feel less alone. She said Roger threw her out after six months, but we've been together longer, and now he's talking about me meeting his mother…that's what she says makes it clear he's serious about me._

_"Well, he is, I suppose, but I had to pull his teeth to make him agree to it. What do you think it is about Roger that makes him so closed off?"_

_"Honestly, I don't know. I always wondered that too. I thought maybe you'd know better than me. I never got to even talk about meeting his mother, by the way, so you are definitely special."_

_I hope I'm special to Roger, because he is without a doubt special to me. I've had a few boyfriends by now, but none who I've loved so much as him. He's just so... complicated. I know who he really is, even if he doesn't want to show me yet. Maybe he will someday, right? It's a good sign that he's taking me to meet his mum, you know?_

_"You know what?," she asks as she squeezes my hand. I can still feel her beautiful soft tummy underneath it, my hand resting against it...and I love the way it rises and falls as she breathes. I love the way the room seems to rock along with the rhythm of her breath, and the way her hair smells like coconuts even from over here. It reminds me of that nice week I spent in Florida when I was a girl with my family and David (he was my brother's best friend)._

_"Hmm?"_

_"Roger is so lucky to have you."_

_My cheeks are positively burning up! I have to be blushing. No one has ever said that to me before. A lot have said I'm too good for Roger, or that I should leave him to find the kind of man I deserve, but no one has ever told me that he's lucky to have me, and I suppose I needed to hear it. I let go of her hand and wrap my arm around the curve of her waist. I pull her into my chest, and as we're wrapped in this intimate embrace I start to feel these strange kinds of feelings. I don't really know how to explain what they are, only that I think the last time I had them was in secondary school when I was getting tutouring from this girl Amanda who I thought was very pretty. I had no idea what the feelings were then, either, and because it was the first time it was even scarier!_

_"Thank you, Maisie. That means so much. Sometimes it feels like people just want to insult Roger, but you go out of your way to be nice even though he hurt you so, and I love that about you."_

_"Well, he's your boyfriend, and you love him. I may not get it, or see what you see in him at all, but you see something in him and so I trust your judgment."_

_I squeeze her tighter: my beautiful, lovely and compassionate best friend. Besides Roger and my mum and sister she's all I have in this world. I lost all my other girl friends when Roger came into my life. He just doesn't like anyone, you know? He's very scared of other people. That's why I feel so lucky that he let me in despite that._

_"I do love him. I love him so much. Do you think he knows how I love him?"_

_"Yes, I do. He has to. You're closer to him than anybody. Hell, I don't think I've ever heard anyone besides Syd say they loved him before. He definitely knows."_

_Is that true? Am I one of the only people who really and truly loves Roger? It couldn't be. He has so many friends, though, hasn't he? It appears that way to me, anyway! Still, though, it does feel sort of nice to be the one that's closest to him, if what Maisie says is true. Do you think he knows that I'd do anything for him, anything? Do you think before he goes to sleep he ever thinks of me the way I think of him?_

_"Do you want me to roll us a joint?"_

_"You know I do," she says, and the hair on the back of my neck bristles when I hear her laugh, but it's not bad. It's not bad at all, in fact it feels rather good to hear her laugh. It's a pleasant bristling, not a feeling that comes from one being afraid. What's going on with me, anyway? It almost feels, dare I say it, like I used to feel with Roger in the beginning before we had all this bloody water under the bridge between us. Now I've got that feeling once again...I can't explain. I'm not sure you'd understand._

_"Noted. Let me go get my maryjane."_

_I dig my stash bag out of my vanity drawer and sit back on the bed next to Maisie. I can't believe that she can be so sad but still be so beautiful. I wish I knew what was wrong. Maybe once we get high she'll tell me. I hope it's not Syd. I hate how he torments her._

_Now I'm breaking up the grass with my fingers, pushing it onto a piece of paper and slowly funneling into a joint wrap. I never smoked much grass until Roger started coming over, but now Maisie and I smoke all the time together. Smoking with her is so much nicer than smoking with Roger, anyway. He gets even more serious and solemn when he smokes and he always ends up leaving the room to go write music or practise what he's already written. I heard him a few weeks ago singing this funny song he'd written in France. The lyrics sound like they're about a woman, but he told me it was about a couple he saw kissing on the beach. I felt a bit jealous when he told me about that because I suppose I'd really like it if he kissed me on the beach...or anywhere in public. He's just very shy though, you know, and he gets anxious about showing his weak side. In private he's...well, he tries..._

_But smoking with Maisie? Well, she always laughs and talks with me. She always reaches out to touch my arm when I make her laugh, or plays with my hair, or lets me do her makeup. I love to do Maisie's makeup. I'm so lucky to have her for my best friend, don't you think? I'm sure the way it's so easy for her to get men makes some other girls jealous, but not me. I know how it feels to have women be jealous of me, and so I don't get jealous of other women. Besides... perhaps I don't need the attention of men besides Roger. Men are a terrible headache sometimes, aren't they? The way they're so hard (both emotionally and physically) and so cold at times...the way they never moisturise and always have an odour to them unless they wear cologne...the way they don't shave their legs and armpits...there's a lot of things about men that I'm not too keen on, aren't there? But I adore my one man despite all of those things._

_Now that the joint is rolled I pass it to her, but she goes to light it with the matches and I swat her hand away. Maybe it's playful, I don't know, but I want to light it for her._

_"Now, now. A pretty girl never lights her own joints, you know," I say as she smiles at me with the joint still stuck between her plump lips._

_"Alright, go ahead."_

_I strike a match and bring it to the end of the joint, and as it starts to burn I watch her hold it with two fingers, like a cigarette. She breathes in and then passes it to me. Joints are so fast when they burn it's hard to make them last long, so I take a hit and then quickly pass it back to her so she can get another one. Look at us, doing this...what would Mummy say? I chuckle as I think of my mother, all prim and proper and wound as tight as a tourniquet, watching me smoke grass in my room with another girl. She's already not thrilled about me dating a 'godless longhair who plays Satan's music', or whatever nasty rubbish she says about Roger on any given day._

_I take in a big cloud of smoke, suck it down my throat and then blow it out. I'm so giddy now._

_"Say. You don't do Halloween here, but I want to throw a Halloween party. I miss Halloween. You all need to start doing it. It's been so weird living without it."_

_"Halloween is where you all dress up and scare one another, yes?"_

_She laughs and takes another hit off the joint and passes it back to me. As I'm inhaling she exhales, gathers herself and starts to talk._

_"Yeah, basically. We could all dress up and have a party with dancing and games and stuff. It would be really fun."_

_"That sounds like a lot of fun! We should do it, I think. I want to go apple picking before that, though. Could we do that? Imagine how cute the boys will be in their autumn clothes!"_

_"We will look ten times better than them in ours," she says with a giggle._

_She's probably right. As cute as David and Roger are, they're still just big hairy blokes at the end of the day, aren't they?_

_"Apple picking it is then, but you need to help me plan this Halloween party!"_

_"Obviously. You need to help me plan it, actually. You have never seen Halloween before; you'll have no idea what you're doing."_

_"What do you think you'll dress up as?"_

_"I dunno," she says with a shrug, "it depends on what David wants to do."_

_I don't know why I feel jealous when she says that. I feel jealous pretty often lately. Sometimes it feels like I spend such a good part of my life feeling jealous that it's becoming a part of my personality! I don't know why I feel jealous: perhaps it's because Roger won't want to do a couple's costume with me, but I'm not quite sure that's the whole thing. There has to be more to it than that, yes? Certainly I'm not so superficial that I'd get myself all in a knot about a couple's Halloween costume! Or am I? Perhaps I'm fooling myself pretending I'm anything other than silly and superficial. Roger seems to think that's all I am...is he right? It sort of seems that way right now, I'm afraid. Instead of simply being happy for Maisie I just can't seem to put aside whatever jealousy I'm feeling for two seconds to properly celebrate with her. I want to be happy for them...for her and David...but I feel so lonely sometimes that it's hard for me._

_"I wonder if Rog will even want to dress up."_

_Even I can hear how sad I must sound, and one can't always hear the tone in their own voice, can they? I don't think so. I think most of the time we all go through life unaware of how we must sound to other people, but even I'm aware of how my voice sounds..I must stink of desperation. If I were talking to anyone but my best friend I'd be ashamed, but I know she doesn't judge me._

_"Even if he doesn't want to, he will, because he loves you."_

_I pull her into me again and kiss her head. Maybe to some our friendship would be strange, as touchy and affectionate as we are, but it works for us._


	40. Maisie - Cambridge, April 2006 - Don Pasquale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and the girls order their dinner, and Rosemary gets a call.

Now that we're all good and stoned we march back into the restaurant (and don't worry, Cora sprayed us all down with body spray - we aren't so naive as to think other people can't smell it on us...do you think we're teenagers or something?). 

My heart starts to pound when I see Rosemary sitting at that table all by herself, texting on her phone. Who does she have to talk to, anyway? I've never seen Rosemary have any friends around, but maybe she has them and I just haven't had the chance to meet them. Not that they'd want to meet me, anyway, with what I imagine she's said about me to them. It doesn't bother me, though. That she talks shit about me, I mean. I text nasty shit about her to Gloria pretty god damned often, too, so who would I be to get pissed off about her doing the same?

But my heart's pounding anyway, and I think it's because every time I have to look at this lady I'm reminded of how poorly she treats my husband. I'm still upset at how she left him out in the cold without his insulin. She didn't even think to call the pharmacy when she couldn't find it. Instead, this cunt stayed in her house and put on her makeup (she's wearing that same bizarre 90s trailer trash blue eyeshadow/shocking pink blush thing she had slathered on her face that day) instead of making sure he was okay. Yeah, I am still angry about that, and if I didn't know better...if I didn't know that murder wasn't in her nature...I might be very suspicious. 

Anyway, I'm supposed to be having fun, aren't I? And I was...before we came back in here. I'm so stoned, though, that the anger doesn't last long once I see the mountain of food that's appeared on the table since we left.

"Ah, ladies, you're just in time to eat. I was afraid the food was bound to get cold while you were out there smoking…" she makes a show of sniffing the air, probably able to pick up the scent of marijuana on us "...your cigarettes."

The look of disdain on her nasty, pursed little face tells me I'm right. She looks like she does 85% of the time: judgmental and disapproving...like nothing you're doing is proper or good enough in her eyes, like she thinks you're shit on the bottom of her shoe.

All of a sudden my phone dings to let me know I've got a text. It's Syd - like always, he knows when I really need him. 

I miss you. I wish you were here. I don't want to sleep without you anymore.

I smile down at my phone as Cora pulls out my chair, and I almost miss my chair as distracted and happy as I am to hear from him. I was hell-bent on leaving him alone to enjoy himself, but it's nice that he thought of me. I probably would have lost my will to leave him alone completely and sent him a text anyway. I'm happy being here with Cora and Judy, but I find myself unable to think of anyone else or fully enjoy my own party because all I want is to be next to him. I want my friends around, too, but I want us all to be together. Syd and I don't have forever. 

I miss you too. After tonight we'll never have to be apart again.

"Is that Syd you're texting?"

Cora smiles at me...that mischievous spark in her eyes consuming and enrapturing as it always was. I always wondered if Cora had known she were gay, and if I weren't with David if she and I would have ended up as more than friends. I feel like we always skirted around it, and I don't think Cora ever knew that we had sexual tension between us because she had no idea she liked women, but if she did I think we would have made a nice couple.

"You know it," I say, eyeing Rosemary as she realizes I still love her brother even when I'm not with him. She's still on her phone herself, texting away. Maybe she's texting with Syd, too, although I find it unlikely. Syd and Rosemary don't really text just to talk. All of a sudden her phone rings instead. She stands up and opens it to start talking, and there's a look on her face that strikes me as anger. Why anger? Maybe I'm wrong...maybe that's just her natural disposition, but I swear she looks angrier than usual. 

"Yes, Bernard?," she asks with a formal, rigid tone to her voice that isn't much different than the one she normally speaks with, but perhaps it has more of an edge to it than usual. "I'm sorry, dears, it's my barrister. I have to take this."

Instead of standing off to the side, Rosemary walks right out of the restaurant, almost stomps in fact, and I watch as she drops the door behind her with a thud. Even other people looking on are alarmed by it, seeming to balk at the abrupt way that she drops the door. What's such a secret, anyway, that she has to rush outside like that?

"What's with that?"

Judy leans her head toward the door Rosemary just stormed out of.

"No idea," I say with a shrug as I tuck my own phone into my purse, "I'm as baffled as you are."

"Could stodgy old Rosemary have a boyfriend?"

"She said it was her lawyer, dear. That's what a 'barrister' is," Cora says softly with a little bit of a teasing curtness to her voice as she jabs her elbow into Judy's ribs, and just lets out a giggle. Judy smiles at her and turns Cora's face toward hers for a kiss. Their kiss and their teasing make me miss Syd all that much more.

"Right. How could I have forgotten?"

"Let's eat, girls. I want to try and finish this off before her Highness returns so she can chide us for how much we've eaten."

"You really don't think we can finish this all in a few minutes, do you, you crazy bird?"

I shrug as I pick up a breadstick and I slather it in olive oil before shoving it in my mouth like a glutton, not even stopping to savor it before I swallow. 

"Nobody says we can't try."

"I love your enthusiasm and determination," Cora says as she spoons some salad onto her plate.

"You aren't allowed to eat just salad, Cora," I spit at her, "We are all getting fat together tonight."

"Don't you worry, you silly cunt; I ate nothing all day so I could pig out tonight."

Next she takes some breadsticks, too, and knowing how good these breadsticks are I'm happy to report that between the three of us we finished them off so Cunty McBitchington couldn't have any. At least we were able to deprive her of that.

I hope you realize it's not in my character to be such a Mean Girl. I would not, in most other circumstances, be so nasty to someone else, or so passive aggressive. I'm in a situation, though, where if I gathered up the nerve to say everything I want to say I'd be putting my husband in an awful position...and I'm not going to be the one to do that. So it seems to me that besides just swallowing it and moving on (which is what I always do when Rosemary is with Syd and I...and it's exhausting to do that all the time) the only way I can possibly get my digs at her is by being passive aggressive. I don't particularly mind. In fact, I think I prefer it this way.

"So, what does she need a lawyer for? Is she in some kind of legal trouble?," Judy asks with an inquisitive edge to her voice. If only I had an answer for her: if Rosemary were in legal trouble, I'd certainly be the last to know. In fact, I doubt she'd even say anything to Syd for fear of worrying him. 

"I don't know," I respond as I pick two pieces of mozzarella up off of the antipasto board and shove them into my mouth, but this time I stop to  
savor them before I swallow, "do you think she tells me shit about her life?"

Cora laughs and nearly spits out her water.

"What life?"

"No, really, imagine she has some sort of crazy double life she's living. By day, a pursed lipped old granny with a yappy little mutt and a house full of kitschy decor...by night...criminal mastermind," Judy says almost too loudly as I watch Rosemary walk back into the restaurant. She seems to have regained her wits, but I can tell she's still spooked.

"Sssh…" I urge her, stifling the hysterical laughter I want so badly to let out, "She's coming back!" 

Judy and Cora raise their heads to look at Rosemary, Cora's fork almost dangling from her hands when we all realize something is very different about her. She doesn't seem angry like she did before, but rather... anxious. The color has drained from her pinched up face, and she's clutching her tiny phone in one hand...it almost looks like she might crush it. She's even shaking a bit. 

"Are you okay, Rose?," I ask, and though I have no love for this woman I care enough that I wouldn't want her to be going through pain or fear...not really, anyway. God knows what could be going on with her that she isn't telling us...or me, or Syd...about. Maybe she really is in some kind of legal trouble. What could Rosemary have gotten herself into? In America there's a lot of reasons people get sued, but in the UK it's not really the same. People aren't as litigious here as they are where I come from, and so I'm completely stumped. 

"Yes, yes. I'm fine. Dandy. Pay me no mind. Tonight is your night, after all."

She shoves her phone into her little old lady purse: a Liz Claiborne with light brown leather straps, and a light brown leather upper half. The bottom half is this strange pattern of interwoven different colors of yarn...there's no discernable pattern in terms of the color. There's only a million different shades of red, blue, orange and yellow. It looks vaguely Native American, but mostly it just looks like something an angry old lady who asks to speak to the manager if her food is overcooked would carry. 

"Glad to hear things are okay. I got a little worried seeing you rush out like that " 

"I see the three of you have eaten up all the breadsticks," she says as she makes a point of staring directly at my stomach, the stink of judgment seeping from her like a container of old Chinese food. That's exactly what I wanted.

"Sometimes first come first serve, I suppose, hm?" 

Cora did me a favor by answering because I was going to say something much more snarky and unnecessary. Something along the lines of 'I wasn't aware you actually ate anything, sorry', or something. Cora must have known if I had the chance to respond I might not have been so nice.

"Yes, I see."

One more glance at my stomach just to put the knife in. In return, I crane my neck to make a point of checking out her flat ass. Seems she is keenly aware of my response and so she turns her eyes away and focuses instead on her empty plate. Cora passes the salad bowl to me, and I scoop some onto my plate. It's covered in their signature Balsamic vinaigrette, and I pass the bowl to Rosemary, reveling in the fact that she got it last. 

God, I hate the person I am when I'm around her, especially when I'm around her without Syd as a buffer to keep me grounded. I hate how she makes me feel so negative and mean just by her very presence, which in itself is so very negative. She's like a bit of toxic waste that's spilled into a river and is slowly spreading and infecting all the animals and plant life, wilting them and turning them petrol black just like she is. 

Jan returns to see about what we'd like off the espresso menu: he's getting a bigger tip now because I had actually forgotten I wanted to look at it. 

"You know what, my dear, I'll just have a latte with skim milk," I say sweetly to him, hoping he hasn't completely given up on us. I know hospitality jobs are some of the worst.

"Ooh, I'd like the caffe con gelato, please. I know it sounds like a dessert, my dear, but I'd like to have it now if it's all the same to you."

Cora's words and voice are so charming even Rosemary couldn't resist them, but then I look over and see her rolling her eyes at the way Cora, still stunning as she was in the 70s, flirts with this young waiter, and the way the young waiter is taken in by it. She's grimacing while she watches them as if she pities Cora instead of feels jealous. Fuck it, I'm jealous. I could never confidently flirt with a much younger man: I'd feel silly and old. Cora, though, can do it with no problem. The last thing any of us should feel for her is pity.

Judy orders a cappuccino, and Rosemary is content with her hot water with lemon, picking pieces of salami off of the antipasto with two fingers like it's disgusting. 

"How are we going to have room for dinner?," Cora asks, winking at me.

"I'm getting a margherita pizza. You are welcome to share it with me," I respond, salivating as I dream of the way that pizza is gonna taste in my mouth. If it's even half as good as it was when we were last here it's the best pizza I've ever tasted (and yes, I've been to both New York City and New Jersey, and yes, besides this pizza both those places do have the best...in America). 

"What is a margherita pizza?," Judy asks innocently, and I'm in disbelief. 

I turn toward Cora, glaring in disbelief. 

"Did you not...really?"

She shrugs her well defined shoulders and smiles a guilty smile, then lets out an embarrassed giggle. I love the way her blonde (who knows if it's natural, but who cares) hair is piled on top of her head and the way it kind of jiggles when she laughs. 

"You always did like that particular dish more than I did, you know, but I'm afraid that you're correct...I never did make sure Judy tried margherita pizza."

"Well, that ends tonight," I declare as I signal for Jan to come back to the table. When he sees me wave he comes back, probably expecting me to order the entire entree menu. His face looks tired, but he's putting on an act for us like any waiter who's halfway decent at their job (there's a reason I've never done it- as you can see, I have a very hard time maintaining myself around people I don't like. Jan, however, has earned his Oscar.)

"Have you ladies decided what you'd like for your main course?"

"We have," I say, "we'll have …"

A little clearing of the throat (Rosemary's signature 'excuse me, pay attention to me' cough) comes from the other end of the table, and I realize I completely forgot about her and what she might want. As guilty as I feel it did sort of feel good to forget about her for awhile. Almost like it was lighter without her here. Yeah, that's the word: lighter. 

"I'm sorry to interrupt your party, ladies, but I haven't had the chance to order yet."

Jan looks like he's holding back a laugh, I can tell. Maybe I was wrong: maybe he doesn't like Rosemary, either. Maybe he can tell that she's the type who would totally rat him out to his manager if given the chance and if there were something she could possibly get out of it. 

"Sorry, Rose. I guess I just got excited."

She nods in acceptance of my half-assed, obviously insincere apology, and picks up her menu. She scrunches up her nose like the entire thing disgusts her, like she's never tasted Italian food in her life and doesn't want to have to start now. 

"Hmm...I suppose I'll have the fettuccine prosciutto," she says, not even trying to pronounce it correctly.

'Fettu-keenie proskiooto'. 

Knowing all the Italian Americans I do, my heart breaks at the butchering of the language. Is she doing this on purpose, or is she really this ignorant of cultures outside her own? I must be clearly visibly upset because Cora squeezes my thigh under the table, trying to calm me down and let me know I'm not alone. She was always especially good at that, and she and I always had a way of knowing when the other was upset.

"Don't ruin your high, dear," she whispers in my ear, her hand still on my leg. When she moves her hand away she meets my eyes with a reassuring smile and reaches her hand across the table to Judy, who may have been showing the tiniest hint of jealousy.

"Fettuccine prosciutto. Right," Jan says, correcting her. In response Rosemary looks properly offended, as if he had absolutely no right to repeat her order back to her in such a fashion as to correct her pronunciation.

How am I going to get through this entire dinner? This is my bachelorette party, damn it. It's supposed to be fun. From now on, nothing Rosemary says or does is gonna get to me: not her facial expressions, not her subtle digs at my weight, not the stuffy way she talks, not her mispronunciations of words... nothing. Nothing. From now on I'm focusing my full attention on having fun with Cora and Judy for the rest of the evening, and Rosemary be damned.

As if she just read my mind Cora springs into action.

"So...as soon as our dinner arrived I would love it if we could open this wine and I could do my toast. I have the most perfect thing planned. I've spent a week writing and rewriting it, you know!"

"Believe me, dear, I'd love to open that bottle of wine and work my way through it "

"Now, now, Maisie, remember there's only one and you have to share!"

"Yes," Judy says, smiling at me, "You're not allowed to guzzle the entire thing yourself. We all would like to have some too, you selfish cow."

"Excuse me," comes an uptight, wound up voice from next to me, "you can drink my portion, Maisie. I find drink to be incredibly improper and don't like the effect it has on people. I cringe every time Roger does it."

I watch as Cora goes rigid; her body language reads 'terrified'. She's stiff, her shiny blue eyes have grown cold and steely, she grabs Judy's arm, but Judy slips her arm out and throws it over Cora's shoulder instead. She's wearing a protective mask: steely eyed herself, Judy pulls Cora in closer to her. She's squeezing her. I notice Cora's rapid, shallow breathing by the sound of it but also by the way her chest is moving up and down so quickly that I can almost feel the beating of her heart without even touching her. Her eyes dart over to me: they're wide, terrified...angry.

I'm not sure what it is, but then I realize: Cora must not have known that Syd's real name is Roger. 

That's when I look over at Rosemary to gauge her reaction to Cora's very obviously negative and fearful reaction, and what I find has me terrified.

I think Rosemary must have guessed that Cora didn't know what Syd's real name was. It sounds nuts, doesn't it, to think she just did that on purpose? Yeah, I know, it sounds nuts to me to even say it to you. It really does. I wouldn't have thought for one second that the little old church lady with the delicate sensibilities would for a second do something that they know might harm someone else, but I swear it looks like Rosemary is smirking. 

I've got to be crazy, right? Like this has to be me ascribing some kind of ill intent to Rosemary where there isn't any, I think, because there is absolutely no way she'd ever do anything quite that cruel. Is there? I have to be dreaming.

Now that I've got my attention off that creepy grin on her face, the one I'm suspicious is her gloating because she made Cora squirm (and squirm is an understatement), I turn to Cora and lay my hand on top of hers. I shake my head to try and wipe the thoughts from my mind. Rosemary wouldn't do that. She's pretty terrible, but she's not sadistic. Surely she isn't. Syd turned out to be so wonderful and kind despite so many mental and physical health issues. Rosemary came from the same home as he did. There's no way in hell that she'd end up the complete opposite. Plus, she's cared for him all these years...

"Syd's real name is Roger," I whisper in her ear to reassure her, "Don't worry. If anyone here was talking to the Dickhead I would have mentioned it ahead of time."

"Thank you," she whispers back to me, leaning her head against mine, "because I was a mixture of terrified and pretty bloody pissed off for a moment there, you know."

"Yeah, I don't blame you. I'd be pissed off too if someone neglected to tell me something like that."

"We can move forward from it now. I'll be okay," she says, this time in a more audible tone of voice.

Rosemary's eyes perk up, it seems, as she looks directly at Cora and smiles. Her smile seems so fake to me, and I'm not sure why I can't shake this feeling. I have no evidence to suggest that Rosemary is sadistic in any way…none. And yet I can't shake it. I can't get rid of this weird suspicious fear in the pit of my stomach. 

"Oh, dear," she says, still with that fake smile on her pinched up face, "did I upset you somehow?"

"No, it's quite alright, really. I just thought you meant my…"

"Ah yes," Rosemary answers as the fake smile brightens even more, "right. Your ex husband is Roger Waters, isn't it? You were frightened that I had some sort of a relationship with that old snake, weren't you?"

"Well, I suppose yes...I was. But all is forgiven. There's nothing to worry about."

The way she brushes Rosemary off leads me to believe that she might be suspicious that it was done on purpose, as well, but that's a topic for another time. Right now Cora still looks shaken, and so I look over at Judy, and she looks back over at me, and she nods to let me know she's got it.

"Cora, love, do you want to join me for a cigarette?"

Cora looks at me now, desperate for my approval to leave.

"Cora, you don't need my permission to go outside with your girlfriend. Go and get yourself settled, and Judy, enjoy your cigarette."

And with that the two of them leave, and Rosemary and I are left alone to stew in the awkward stink that hangs around us: this weird, uncomfortable stench of mutual dislike and perhaps even resentment... although why she'd resent me I don't understand. I most certainly resent her for leaving Syd outside in the cold by himself after not having any insulin, though.

"So, did you enjoy all that food you've been eating, or has the regret hit you?"

She winks at me as she picks up a piece of meat with a fork and daintily pushes it into her mouth, playing her insult off like it's a joke, but I know better. The air between us stays as chilled as ice as I push some salad around on my plate. I'm staring down at it, praying for Cora and Judy to come back in so we can get this over with. This awkwardness is going to be the death of me. 

"Yeah, we enjoyed it. And I'm gonna enjoy that pizza, and my latte, and some dessert, too."

"Hmm. Well, I'm not going to have dessert. I'm watching my figure," she says, and I know I shouldn't, but I hear my mother. 

Again. She sounds just like my mother.

Watching what figure, by the way? She couldn't be thinner if she tried to be. She's so thin that pants hang off her ass even when they fit around her waist (with a belt). Her arms are so bony that her wrist bones jut out farther than her hands. She could more than afford to eat dessert tonight, and she knows it. 

"I watch my figure all the time. Did Syd ever tell you how the intensity of my pilates workouts scares him? He has no idea how I do it," I say, lifting an arm and flexing my muscles. Let her think I'm bragging. After all, I am, aren't I? And I have every right to; I've worked harder than most men I know for the body I have. 

"Ah, I wouldn't have guessed."

Now, that is a bold faced lie if I've ever heard one. I am definitely plus sized, but I always kind of wanted to be. Even if men don't like it (and there is no evidence of that, but anyway)...it's my own little fuck you to the beauty industry that made me hate myself for decades. I've enjoyed being a bigger lady for the past 15 years or so, but anyone with eyes can tell I work out because my thighs, ass and arms are built. It's so ridiculous for her to say that she can't tell that I'm not even angry or offended; I just find it hilarious.

"Are those glasses doing you any good, Rosemary?"

I smile at her...the same fake ass smile that she gave Cora.

"Perhaps you need some, yes?"

"I don't think so, but perhaps you could use some dessert," I say as I shovel more salad into my mouth defiantly. I wonder if Syd is having more fun than I am at this moment.

And as luck would have it, here come Cora and Judy to save me from this dreadful interaction with my sister-in-law.


	41. Roger - Cambridge, 1969 - Outside David and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger tortures himself watching Maisie and David plan their costumes for the party.

_I followed Maisie home from Cora's just a bit ago, and I don't think she had any idea. If she had she would have said hello, without a doubt, or at least mentioned it to David by now, but she's said nothing about it. It doesn't surprise me: not only am I very fucking good at not being caught, but she also wouldn't see me anyway. She almost never does._

_She looked perfect today...she always looks perfect, but today she looked especially beautiful, but I can't say why. I don't know what it was...maybe it was her new blouse, or the pants she was wearing, or the way her hair hung loose. So many girls today have their hair in these weird cuts, and they use irons to burn the curls out of their hair, afraid to let it go loose and wild like she does, but she is never afraid, and I love that about her. Her body was shapely as usual, but I especially enjoyed the view from behind today. The way her pants hugged her hips and her ass...I could have pleasured myself in the middle of the street, but when I say I crave being caught I don't mean by any random person about on the street._

_Now I'm watching through David's kitchen window...watching them sit across from one another to prepare dinner. It's often now that I watch them engaging in this nightly ritual, when Maisie cuts up vegetables and David trims the meat... Maisie boils rice and David sets the table. Tonight she's cutting up a cucumber for their salad, and I adore the way her hands move as they scale it. I imagine it's her hands on my cock until she slices it, and then perhaps that fantasy is a bit ruined. Nonetheless, I find myself getting more and more jealous of David as the minutes pass and I see the way they keep looking at one another and smiling: nothing in particular to talk about, but enjoying one another's company._

_"I talked to Cora about having the Halloween party, you know. When I was at her house today."_

_That's right: that blasted Halloween party. That's going to be tortuous for me to have to go through when I see the couple's costume they're going to wear. They aren't even together. He has no claim on her, but I do. He has never never enjoyed her body and fucked her into submission, but I have. He's never kissed her, but I have. Why should she be going to some party with him dressed in Halloween costumes together? So what if he can make her laugh? That should be she and I. I should be the one dancing with her at that party wearing a costume that complements hers. I'd sweep her off her feet, and she'd leave that party being more certain about nothing else in her life besides the way she felt when I did._

_"Oh yeah? What did she say?_

_David is so beautiful. It's not fair how bloody gorgeous he is with those piercing, but warm blue eyes and that silky dirty blonde hair...those full lips and his lean, muscled body. I hate him for it, absolutely despise him. Any woman would choose him over me, and that just adds to my jealousy, because that's exactly what's happening now: she's choosing him over me even though I love her more than he could ever dream of loving her._

_"She really liked the idea. I think we're going to do it."_

_"Have you decided what we should dress up as yet?"_

_The tone in his voice is almost mocking, but she clearly thinks it's cute because she giggles like a schoolgirl and looks down at the cucumber she's slicing with a shy smile on her face. If I teased her like that she'd never laugh and smile that way: she'd just think I was mean. The jealousy is so intense it's hurting my throat where this awful lump is. It's stabbing into the pit of my fucking stomach and corroding all of my organs with its toxic acidity. It's poisoning every part of me, but I can't find a way to fix it, to stop the poison from spreading and killing me. If I didn't know for a fact it would blow up my spot I'd have stomped their garbage cans into oblivion by now!!_

_"I thought we were both going to decide," she says with a sly smile._

_I wonder how long she's been planning this. Or how long the two of them have been planning this. The last time I was here …which was three days ago … they weren't talking about this party. They were talking about other things, but this didn't come up._

_"Yeah, but sometimes that means you're actually the one who's going to decide."_

_There he goes again with the teasing. Why does that work for him, but never would for me?_

_Look at how beautiful she is when she smiles at him. That should be my smile. Mine, and only mine. I should be the only one who she smiles at like that, the only one who she even ever looks at in any way that kind of resembles that smile. If I could gather the nerve...if I could swallow all of my fear and…_

_"Fine, then. I'll pick if you're inviting me to."_

_"Now I'm worried."_

_"You made your bed, David Gilmour, now lie in it!"_

_"Oh, see, I'm about to take it back now and choose something myself and not even do a costume that matches yours."_

_I know he isn't serious. I know he's teasing. I know they're both taking the piss out of one another, and that they're going to wear matching costumes, but that made me even angrier. I would never talk to her that way. I'd never even threaten it. I'd dress up exactly how she wanted me to without complaining, and yet she won't look twice at me._

_I hate the way they're so natural together: the way it all flows so seamlessly between them. I hate the way they keep looking at one another like that...she looks at him like he's the most amazing man in the world._

_"Well, you'd be the one missing out then."_

_"I'm sure I would," he says with one of his dazzling smiles as he stands up and leaves his chicken on the table before he's finished chopping it, "Now I have to use the loo. I'll be right back."_

_When he stands up he stops, and she looks up at him and smiles. He's right behind her; he could wrap his arms around her if she stood up right now, and if he were brave enough, but we both know he isn't. David could never be brave enough to even touch her, let alone do exactly what I want to do. But then he reaches out and rumples her hair, and her smile gets wide...almost silly. She cranes her neck up to look right into his cool blue eyes, and I watch as he extends his hand to touch her face, but stops himself._

_He pats her head one more time before he walks off, and she and I are left alone (although she doesn't know it) so I can see her without David around...when she is most perfectly herself and unafraid of the judgment of others. Look at the way she plays with her hair. She twirls it around her finger...not like she needs to twirl it because it naturally looks as if she had. She's humming one of our songs...it's one of the parts of Echoes that I've made David practise over and over again so he doesn't suck, but mostly because I know she likes it so much and I'm trying to learn it myself._

_Now that she's done with her cucumber she moves on to a red pepper, and each and every way she's so careful not to hurt herself when she cuts it...each way she moves her hands so expertly...each way she turns it and slices it, and the way her eyes look so focused. It's like she has tunnel vision, but I bet if David came back now she'd look right up from what she was doing and forget all about it._

_When we were living together Maisie could barely touch chicken without burning it. She had no idea how to even find her way around a kitchen. Growing up with staff, of course, it was understandable that she'd fail at basic womanly duties like that, but it seems now she's become quite good at it. I can't believe David helps her. I'm not sure if I'm jealous or if I think he's pathetic for not just having her do it and focusing instead on practising that guitar part so that he isn't god-awful._

_And now David comes back, and as I predicted she looks right up from the pepper and stares at him...she's smiling again. That should be mine. That pepper she's cutting should be mine, too, and all the food she's making tonight._

_Why can't David be into girls like Cora? I know for a fact that she wishes sometimes that she could have talked to David first because I read it in her stupid diary when she was in the shower once. I know she's talked to you about how she thinks David is gorgeous. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. If David liked Cora it would be so easy for me to woo Maisie away from him and back into my bed and my arms, but he doesn't. Why wouldn't he? She's fucking stunning. She looks like a model. There's no reason for him to prefer someone else over her. Am I talking about David, or myself?_

_As for Cora, I hate that she's going to bother me about this party. I hate that I'm going to have to dress up as something related to whatever she wants instead of whatever I'd like to be._

_"I was thinking about our costumes when I was in the loo, and I had an idea I thought you might like," he says as he sits back down and goes back to cutting chicken._

_"What's your idea? I honestly can't think of anything off the top of my head, so I am really relieved that you have an idea."_

_"I was thinking about those red shoes you have. The ones you say don't match anything you're wearing right now, and that's when the idea hit me," he says, "You could be Dorothy. You know, from The Wizard Of Oz."_

_Devastating. She'd look so fucking cute I wouldn't be able to stand it._

_"That's a good idea! We'd be able to find pieces for that costume so easily."_

_"That's right, and you already have the right hair for it so you don't have to worry about a wig or anything."_

_"Well," she says, touching her beautiful spirals of hair, "I wouldn't dress up as anything that required a wig, anyway."_

_"With hair like that it would be a shame to hide it under something fake."_

_He's too fucking smooth. For someone who is so shy he can't even speak to most girls, and could barely speak to her until a few months before what happened with Syd, he sure knows what the fuck he's supposed to say at any given time to make her blush, and of course she is blushing. Her cheeks are so beautifully flushed pink that I start to imagine I'm the one making it happen. I love when she looks so shy; it reminds me of the way she looked when we first met._

_"So if I'm Dorothy, who are you going to be?"_

_"Well, the lion, of course."_

_Yeah, the cowardly lion...good match for David and how much of a coward he is talking to girls...except maybe not anymore, I suppose. Every time I come here and he's here with her he is such a natural flirt that it drives me bonkers. With rage. Rage that makes me want to impale him with a fucking guitar and dispose of his body after cutting it into pieces._

_"I thought you were going to say the Tin Man. The lion is cowardly, but you're so brave, David."_

_The way she's fucking talking to him...she's supposed to talk to me that way. The way she has that hint of high pitched, girlish adoration in her voice...in every dream I have of her that's exactly how she talks to me. I'd hate her right now if I didn't love her so much for taking my dreams from me and giving them to another man._

_"Isn't that the point of him, though? That he always had courage and just didn't realize it?"_

_...and there goes me getting any kind of satisfaction out of that exchange because he's exactly right: that was the point. Bless him. If I didn't know he was so simple minded I'd think he was rather brilliant with the way he's talking right now, because most people don't seem to understand that about the original story, let alone the film that's happening in front of their faces._

_"That's true. Well, you'd make a perfect lion, then," she says with that dreamy, shy tone to her voice…_

_That tone she gets where she's...when she loves someone. The soft, sweet tone she used with Syd...that one. The one I never got to hear, but I dream of it constantly. It's out of character for her voice, and for her character: it makes her sound younger, more docile, and more innocent. It's my favorite tone of voice she's ever used, but she's never, ever once used it with me, and mostly likely she never will._

_It's that thought, the realization that she will never whisper my name in the dark of night in that dreamy, girlish voice... never use it to beg me for my kiss the way I will never allow myself to beg for hers...never eat my ears alive with its sweetness during lovemaking...it's that thought that almost leads me to be caught by them, but I'm careful to swallow the sob before it can become what ultimately ruins my entire life: if I let out that sob I'll lose not only my carefree life (as they're sure to phone the police), but also my band, my friends, surely my girlfriend, ...and her. If I allow myself for even one second to slip and let out any noise, and should I then break into a run, surely they'd find me._

_And while I often stand at her window watching her and dream that perhaps she'd find me there, and that perhaps she'd feel so flustered by the magnitude of the lengths I'd go to just to be near her, even if only from a distance, that she'd lose control and she'd fall right into my arms...that dream is nowhere close to a reality, but I'll keep coming, and I'll keep dreaming. For now, though, because this is (stark, cold, sad) reality and most decidedly not a dream, I am forced to live with the consequences of my actions should I give myself away, and so I swallow that sob, but it was hell to swallow it: absolute fucking bloody hell._

_"And you'd make a better Dorothy than Judy Garland," he says right back to her in that same type of dreamy voice that he gets._

_"Oh, stop, David. You're a flatterer."_

_"I just don't lie. I see no reason to hold back the truth. I know I'd make a great shaggy lion, so why not tell you the truth, too?"_

_"You would make a great shaggy lion," she says with a demure giggle as she daringly touches his beard, and I watch as he flushes a deep shade of scarlet._

_"Now, now, hands off the merchandise."_

_He's obviously joking, and she can tell because she giggles again and pulls on the longest part of it with her tiny child's hands._

_I hate him. I hate him with every bone in my body and every part of my soul. I hate how he calms her at night...he thinks I don't know they're sleeping together every night, but oh, I do...I do know because I watch them with painful longing for her and pure, scorching hatred for him...I hate how he helps her breathe deeply until she stops crying. I hate how they smoke together and make one another laugh. I hate how I can tell he's looking at her breasts, her bum, her hips and her legs as if he could have them any time, and I hate that I know he's right. I hate how her eyes light up when he walks into a room, and how their banter goes back and forth so naturally. I hate how she remembers he exists without any thought for me at all. I hate David. I hate him. I hate how he's better at everything than I'll ever be except for writing lyrics and reading books and being an intellectual._

_I take one last look at her before I decide it's better to go home before I can't stop myself from crying anymore._

_What should I dress up as?_


	42. Kim - Sussex, April 2006 - David And Kim's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim Gilmour is back, this time worrying herself about her husband becoming more and more distant from her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm only doing three chapters this week because next week a new story arc starts!

I feel like David has been cold to me for the past few months, but it's difficult to tell because he's always been a little bit distant. He's closed off, doesn't like to talk about his emotions. You know how men can be. David is exactly like that, and it drives me absolutely bonkers because I wish he'd just talk to me. 

It's nearing my birthday. Actually, it's next week, and I think I found my birthday present left up on his computer the other day. He's going to have this huge bouquet of flowers delivered here with this card that says _"I will always love you"_ but he hadn't yet filled out our address. He probably walked away before he could fill it out, or something, but the thought that it'll be delivered to me any day now makes me giddy.

I've got the best husband in the world. Seriously, whenever I watch him play with our grandkids it reminds me of how lucky I am to have such an amazing guy to call mine. The other day he took all of them out on a walk with our black lab puppy Lucy and I hung back and took pictures of them. I have them all uploaded onto the computer ready for editing, and then I'm going to print them on photo paper, frame them and put them up on the walls in David's recording studio. Do you think he'll be surprised? I think he's going to just love it. He's a family man to his core, and a good one. I've never met a man who loves his family as much as he does. He was always wonderful, loving and doting with our children, and although he's always been a little bit distant from me he's always been loving and wonderful with me, too. There's not a day that goes by where I forget that I'm loved and appreciated, and I know exactly how lucky I am.

He's just seemed uneasy lately, and I often wonder if it's his music, which it so often is, or if there's something else. Sometimes I do feel like there's something he isn't telling me, but it's impossible. It's simply impossible. We tell one another everything, even when I have to pull teeth to get him to tell me the truth, he always does. It's silly to think he's keeping a secret: it's just the insecurities of an aging old model who's become nothing but a housewife, but he hates when I put myself down that way. 'You're more beautiful than most women half your age," he always says to me when I start to get down on myself. That's the kind of amazing man I've got. 

So when I say that it's weird for him to be distant that's because it is, at least as distant as he's being right now. I wish I knew what was bothering him. He's always got a lot going on in his head.

Me? I'm an open book. If I feel something I tell him immediately. Maybe I nag, but I don't think I do, I just like to solve problems as soon as they come up. I want to get things out of the way, clear the air and move on, but David? David would never talk about any of his emotions if he could somehow make that work for himself. So no, I'm not a nag. I suppose he and I are different in that way: I like to attack things, and he likes to stew on them. Despite this huge difference between us we have managed to make it work, and we've raised a beautiful family who've now gone off to raise their own beautiful families.

I've been blessed, really, I have. All six of my kids were easy births, I never struggled with the baby blues, I fell in love with all of them at first sight, and I had a supportive and enthusiastic husband through every single one. The only downside ever was that I have had to do a lot of parenting on my own. David's touring meant I spent a lot of days with six kids running around screaming and tearing my house apart while I barely held it together. It meant a lot of having to be in six places at once: Mason had football practise, Jennifer had ballet, Kristin had debate team meetings, Allen had aftercare and enrichment (he's the youngest), Ginny had science club meetings and Sarah had cricket matches. I was always running somewhere to get somebody else somewhere all on my own, and it's admittedly been difficult to keep my resentment at bay, but I do the best I can, and I have always done the best I could.

If I've ever been angry at David, I promise he's known it right away. He hadn't always wanted to hear it, but he always does nonetheless. I believe in being upfront and settling things right then and there, and so if I have to I'll talk his bloody ears off. What really gets my goat is how he just doesn't say anything back. 

I wonder what he's going to do for my birthday this year. I already know about the flowers, but usually he throws me a party, and invites a whole bunch of our friends and family. They're always very grand affairs. He doesn't like to have big parties for his birthdays, though, and it's always been that way. I'm not sure why he isn't fond of his birthday, he won't tell me, but whatever it is must be pretty awful. 

Another thing that bothers me a bit about my husband is that he's obviously carrying some kind of pain, but he doesn't say what it is and has never mentioned it. I've spent the length of our marriage trying to figure out what could have gone wrong in his life, because it all seems so normal. He had normal parents, normal siblings, a normal childhood, a normal adulthood...there's nothing as far as I can tell. I suppose sometimes people just have the blues, but whatever it is makes him spend a whole lot of time in his studio or in the basement playing weepy music on his guitar, craving his solitude. I guess sometimes I feel left out. 

I'm so lost in wondering what David will do for my birthday this year that I've forgotten that my grandchildren are due to be here in an hour, and I've yet to clean up the house. It's just so exciting. Unlike David, I love my birthday, and I always make sure we have a great time. Not that David doesn't help - obviously, he organises the whole affair, but I do a lot of the prep work, which is fine with me because I don't mind cleaning the house up or arranging the furniture. 

He's never been particularly great at helping out around the house, although I know he's an amazing cook, so I'm not quite sure why. I've asked him to help with dinner many times, but he always seems to have some excuse, whether it's guitar or a headache (which he's quite prone to, actually) or whatever it might be that day. So I stopped asking quite awhile ago because there was no use. I do wish that he would help sometimes, though. It would be nice for us to make dinner together. Would be a great opportunity for some conversation that we seem to get less and less of these days, for whatever reason.

I'm sorry if I repeat myself, but I'm worried about my husband. He seems blue these days, and unless he's got a new album he's working on (which is possible, but he's always told me if that were the case, and I can't imagine this time would be any different) there doesn't seem to be anything happening around us that would have him in such a dark mood so often. 

Where is he now, anyway? The last time I saw him was this morning. I made breakfast, I cleaned up from breakfast, he excused himself...said he was taking one of the cars out for a drive out to his hometown and back. We haven't been there for quite awhile, not since his brother left all those years ago, so I'm not sure why the drive to go back there, but it could be for some idea he's had recently that again, I don't know about. Have you ever loved a man with such a melancholy personality? Isn't it just infuriating from time to time? I know it is for me, but I try my best to be understanding. Artists, you know. They're an odd bunch. 

So yeah, that's right: he's out for a drive, and has been for a few hours now from the looks of it. It does take a long time to get there and back … about two hours, if I remember correctly. That's such a long way to drive for no reason. If we ever had to worry about money I'd definitely have made more of a scene, what with petrol prices being what they are these days. There has to be something he's gone to see there or some business he's had there, and I'm sure he'll tell me once he gets home. He's so deep, and so interesting, and it's like everything he does has some deeper purpose than he lets on.

It'll be going on six hours since he left, and the grandchildren are due to arrive any minute. They'd love to be able to play with their Grandpa before sundown, and so I do hope he comes home soon, but who knows. Maybe I'll give him a call.

The phone rings, and rings, and rings. I guess he's listening to music and can't hear it ringing. I'll just leave him a voicemail.

His voicemail recording plays, and it reminds me of just how in love with his voice I am. That's what did it in the first place, I think: his deep, velvety voice. Of course, that wasn't nearly the only thing that made me fall in love with him, but it was the first thing. I love the way he talks, and his beautiful warm smile, and how it feels to sleep in bed with him every night, but lately he's out of bed before me in the morning when we used to enjoy waking up together. I even found him in our closet the other day for some reason, and he kind of rushed to move things around when he heard me coming. If I didn't know him so well I might think he was cheating, but I've often had that fest throughout our marriage and he's never cheated on me. I know he hasn't because he'd never do that. He's too good of a man, and I know that you think all rock stars do, but not my David. If something is up with him it surely isn't another woman. It's just him being his mysterious, strange, elusive self. I've come to be used to it by now, but I don't always like it, and I don't think our children were always getting all the benefits from their father that they could have been getting. But we all know the low bar that's set for fathers: change a few diapers, play for a few hours, figure out how to get one meal every few weeks together, and you're Father Of the Year. For mums, it's not so easy.

"Hey, baby," I say in as pleasant a voice as I can muster, seeing as I'm a little annoyed that he didn't answer, "Just calling to let you know that the grandchildren will be here very shortly, and I'm sure they'll want to see you before bedtime, so perhaps you should think about coming home...if you're not too busy."


	43. Rick - Cambridge, 1969 - Ravenwood Meadows Farm and Orchard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick watches as Maisie and Roger awkwardly pick apples together while Cora and David wander off to pet some horses. Tragedy ensues after they have a fun idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo since writing this it's come to my attention that this type of storyline is not well liked. I'm sorry it is what it is, lol, this story at its core is a callback to American soap operas and so I had to do this type of storyline. I hope you can have fun with it still!

_Just another bullshit outing that Cora pulled out of her tiny arse, but this time it was Maisie, really, that put this one together. Maybe the two of them together did this. Who knows. I never thought there was a chance in hell I'd ever be going apple picking, but here we are. What a stupid tradition. I don't even like apples, and I'd much rather be at home with Jane reading or practising my piano while she was reading. Instead, here we are. In an orchard. Picking apples. Four couples doing couple things, all so the girls...or at least three out of four of them...can hang out together and chatter with one another while pretending that the four blokes who are standing around grunting at one another or muttering about instruments and songs enjoy hanging out with one another. I suppose we do when we don't have to be in boyfriend/husband mode, but believe me when I say truthfully that we do these things for you, ladies._

_Anyhow, despite the fact that I don't want to be part of this I couldn't resist the urge to watch the fucking trainwreck. What would you do without me to relay your own frustrations with these people to you? There is always that one who says perhaps what we all wish to say, really, and that has always been me. See, I think all this, and they think I'm so quiet, but really I just prefer to observe. Jane and I have this in common. We have so many discussions about this group of crazies that would probably really interest you, but it's not my prerogative to share Jane's words for her._

_This is also a women's ritual to show off autumn fashions to one another and evaluate each other's attire silently to themselves, or to one another. And of course my companions may describe these women's clothes in an objectifying manner that represents how the brutes are unable to divorce women's clothing from their own desire for women, but lucky for you perhaps I notice the actual clothing, and the choices aren't particularly terrible this year._

_First off you've got Cora, who sticks out the most just based on physical looks alone, and she's got on a plaid skirt, mostly a golden yellow with some orange red and black. It reaches her knees, and on top we have a white blouse under a taupe blazer. On the feet the white and black halo shoes, the ones that look like men's shoes but end in a small, tasteful block heel. Enough to be stylish without ridiculous, but how on Earth is she waking in these things? I don't know how ladies can do it, and neither does Maisie, but we'll get there. Cora's hair is routinely piled on top of her head in something that's a bit more effortless looking than one of those hideous beehives, but it certainly seems like she intends it to look enough like one. She looks smart. That's the word: smart._

_Now, Maisie, she always makes wise choices about what's going to accentuate what she's got. Some girls have to do that, but it isn't a bad thing. And first off, all you hear about with Maisie (I am willing to bet) is 'hair, hair, hair' , I won't even bother with putting you through that again. You know Maisie had a good head of hair. Half her beauty is hair, so we've settled that and I'll just go on to the clothes. We never get dark colours out of Maisie, really, so the black long sleeved blouse that fastens around the neck coupled with a knee length maroon red skirt that sort of sprawls out further than her hips fastened tightly around her waist on top of black leggings is an interesting choice. She's coupled it with some black mary janes, which is a nice touch._

_Now, Amelia... Amelia always wears red. No matter what day it is, what time of year it is, whether or not we are at a funeral, or what, Amelia is wearing something red. So today is not much different: today she's got on one of those horrible boxy dresses. Red of course, and with long puffy sleeves. If she were anything but as thin as a rake it would make her look like an icebox, but she happens to be thin as a rake, and so we don't have to worry about that particular thing, do we? She's been wearing her hair long since she met Maisie, although with hair as straight as straw it usually isn't as interesting. She makes it work. It doesn't look bad, mind you, it's just straight as a pin and very sort of limp. She tries. She wears more makeup than the other three as well, all of whom are wearing very little except for Cora, whose makeup is understated, but Amelia looks positively done up with her bright red fire engine lipstick and the dark eyeliner all around the eye. I'd swear I'd seen Amelia in the red light district some time ago if she weren't married to a dear friend of mine._

_And now for my Jane, the most magnificent of them all...she's got on a very some Audrey Hepburn type of outfit: black pants that stop just below the knee and a tight black blouse. Her dark rimmed square framed glasses sit right where they should on the bridge of her nose, and she's got on simple flat shoes. No frills. Never with her. Not when we're amongst this crowd, anyway. Perhaps when she and I are alone later she'll dress up a bit more for me. It's sort of our personal thing. Her flaming locks of hair cascade over her shoulders and down over her breasts, and her face is serious: undaunted. She doesn't want to be here, either, but it's too good of an opportunity to pass up._

_Now that we've gotten everyone's clothes out of the way it's time to take a look at what we have going on here, because it's about to get very interesting. I don't know if this is a custom where you live, but around here (or at least in this circle of people) we do something called partner switching when we're all out on group dates. It seems to be a recent development, as well, and while 'partner switching' for myself, Jane, Amelia, and Nick means that Jane and Amelia go off together while Nick and I while away the time mumbling at one another...for the four people you're actually interested in it means something else._

_Now, when David and Cora went off together to check out the horses I would have followed and left Nick on his own if I had any suspicion that anything untoward or even halfway interesting were to happen, but I have no such suspicion: although Cora is of course attracted to David she only has eyes for Roger, and David only has eyes for Maisie, and so the two of them are engaging in partner switching in exactly the socially acceptable and appropriate way. They've gone off to talk with one another, and Maisie is left here picking apples up a ladder and tossing them into a basket that Roger is holding. Clearly, she isn't happy to be left here with him. That's as obvious as anything. Only the colour of the clear blue sky today is more obvious than how displeased Maisie is having been left here with Roger as she is tossing apples into his basket in such a way that I'm almost positive she wants him to drop it._

_Yet somehow he remains calm with her. He's not angry at all, and you know how quick Roger is to get defensive and blow his top at people. He just stares up at her wide eyed while she tosses apple after apple haphazardly and with brute force into the basket he's holding, completely unaware that he can't tear his eyes away: that his feelings are written all over his face. She doesn't care. My heart stings for him and the way he can't tell her anything, and the way she'd without a doubt run off if he tried. I can picture it now: he tells her how much he loves her, she starts to tremble with fear, and she sprints off like a terrified little rabbit from a hungry wolf. Runs off into David's arms, shaken, and Roger is left alone and heartbroken._

_Nonetheless, he finally opens his big mouth to speak, and he's careful, but he's still taking a chance. I don't know why: he's got a much more beautiful girlfriend and Maisie would rather see him strung up by his balls than be with him, but yet he persists in the one way he can. Stupid bugger._

_"So...I noticed a long time ago that you were reading 1984," he says with a timidity that is really and truly unlike him._

_"Yeah, I read it, but it got lost when I … When, you know, we broke up and you packed my things."_

_"Yeah. I guess I didn't see it anywhere. My apologies."_

_What a bloody liar. He stole it; I know he did because I saw it sitting on his night table once when I snooped through his room like I'm wont to do with everyone from time to time._

_"Whatever," she says, her attention clearly more on her apples and slamming them down into the basket than on anything Roger is saying._

_"Well...what did you...what did you think about it?"_

_"Did you read it?"_

_"Yes, I have my own copy. I enjoyed it very much. It made me think quite a bit about things."_

_Yes, yes. Your own copy. Right, Roger._

_"Yeah, I guess that's what it's meant to do," she spits._

_"Well...what did you think of it?"_

_"I don't know, Roger. This doesn't seem like the right time to talk about it."_

_Yes...so now you've seen both sides of Maisie, I presume. When she likes someone she's so very warm and kind, as you know. She's funny, witty, and she's nice to people. She's polite and laughs and she's generally responsive. It's different when Maisie doesn't like someone. As you can see, she's cold, dismissive, annoyed and short. There's not one other person I've seen her behave this way around. This is special treatment, reserved for Roger and Roger alone._

_"I…," he's off to an awkward start, "I value your input."_

_"Okay, fine. I think it had a lot to say about how technology is going to erode our freedom and negatively impact individuality, and how propaganda will eventually outdo and outlast hard journalism. I consider it to be an allegory for the harm technology can do if misused, and not really about government itself, maybe."_

_And this is the other side: one would not know how brilliant Maisie is unless they asked the way Roger just did. And kudos to him, by the way, for being the only one of the three who seems to value that._

_"I really like that."_

_"Thanks, I guess."_

_And now she's back to pulling off apples. Surely she doesn't need this many. I half expect one of them to start throwing its own apples at her like in The Wizard Of Oz soon the way she's tearing them off. And by the way, it is customary for someone, when asked how they felt about something, and giving an answer, to return the question, but she isn't._

_"What about...well, what do you think about how they were always at war?"_

_"Isn't it like that already?"_

_"Well, I suppose it is."_

_Roger sounds so unsure of himself. Hearing him speak now to her you'd never guess that when he usually talks about all this he seems fairly certain that he's the authority on it, despite what experience or interest whomever he's talking at has on the subject._

_"Yeah."_

_I mean... there's not much more of a signifier that one wishes to end a conversation than just the word 'yeah' so casually spat with all the care Maisie would show a slug that managed to sneak into her house. And yet …_

_"I like your...your skirt. It's an interesting colour."_

_"Thanks. I mean, it's just scarlet. It's nothing that unique."_

_"It looks really nice on you."_

_One can't help but cringe, can we? He's like a big dope (and I'm being kind since the words that are actually occurring to me to say would probably offend a more modern audience). He's lost all his dignity now talking to her about her skirt when really the skirt is just an excuse to tell her how beautiful he thinks she is in general. It’s sort of hilarious watching Rog flail about with no dignity trying to gain the approval of a girl who thinks he’s nothing more than a slug. She doesn’t even care that he’s standing next to her. I bet as he stares up at her on that ladder he’s thinking of the day that he caught Maisie and David so close together when she fell off that ladder, and it’s killing him. He wishes it was him, I know he does, and he must still think about it sometimes. I remember when we walked back into Syd’s backyard and we saw Maisie and David sitting there, she in his arms and the two of them laughing their arses off, and I watched Roger’s face twist into some kind of preternatural weird, monstrous and spooked horror when he realised that David could very well move in next (I’m fighting my urge to call her a slag - I’m trying, I really am, but let’s face it - any girl that hooked up with three guys from the same band would be called a slag)._

_I bet he wishes she’d tumble off her ladder now so he could emulate it and try as he might to make her feel as charmed by it now as she did then when David caught her. He has no luck, though, because I can see her deliberately making sure she’s as steady on her feet as she can possibly be. If I didn’t feel so much pity for poor Roger I might perhaps find her being as careful as she can not to fall rather hilarious._

_Ah, lucky for Maisie (but not so lucky for Roger, perhaps), Cora and David have returned, although I’ve no idea where my girlfriend and Nick’s wife are._

_Cora goes right to Roger and wraps her arms around his waist from behind. He plays at a smile at her and turns around to kiss her, but in the middle of the kiss his eyes flash open, and he stares out of the corner of his eye at Maisie, who’s now climbed down off her ladder and has gone to stand right next to David._

_"Hey, kid," he says softly to her as he rumples her hair._

_She looks up at him with a grateful smile that's got a not too subtle hint of relief in it. I wonder if I'm the only one who sees it, or if David, Roger and Cora see it too. I know that Maisie is gentle with Cora about Roger, and does all she can not to let her true feelings slip, but if Cora has no idea that Maisie can't stand even the sight of her boyfriend then she's either as dumb as I think she is, or Maisie's just that good at hiding it, or perhaps both. More than likely it's both. Cora is as stupid as I suspect she is, but most likely Maisie just hides it very well. I don't see how anyone could miss that look, though. Even Nick's caught on. Then again, I say that as if Nick isn't fully aware of how Maisie despises Roger and everything having to do with him._

_"Hey," she answers, that goofy smile still on her face, "did you enjoy the horses?"_

_"They were just marvelous," Cora answers for David, her long, willowy arm slipping through Roger's, and Roger wincing as she does it, "I was wondering if you wanted to ride them. David and I thought it might be fun."_

_Ah, yes. Riding horses is just so much fun. No, thank you. Getting atop an enormous unpredictable creature who could kill me if it felt the urge is most decidedly not my idea of a good time._

_"I've never ridden a horse before," Roger confesses, and the other three look at him like he's absolutely bonkers._

_I'm with you there, Roger. I haven't, either, and I'm rather inclined to keep it that way._

_"I think it's settled then," Cora squeals with delight, "Oh, Roger, you simply must! It's so freeing and exhilarating and positively wonderful! You'll love it, I know you will."_

_Now there's a sight: Roger riding a horse. A horse riding a horse, if you will._

_Maisie and David smile at one another like they always fucking do. Jesus bloody Christ, would the two of them just get on with it already? They've already been on a date. I mean for fuck's sake thru fucking live together, and apparently sleep in the same bed, but they haven't fucked and they aren't in a relationship. If the girl is ready to sleep in bed with another man I'm pretty sure she's well on her way to being ready to open her legs, David. Get the fuck on with it. The whole dance business they're doing trying to avoid the truth of the situation is getting rather old very quickly._

_"Can I ride behind you? I'm a little nervous on horses, but I'd still like to ride one," she asks with that trademark timidity that I don't believe is completely genuine._

_Yeah, I'd bet you'd like to ride one, wouldn't you? I'm sorry - I couldn't resist that one. She made it entirely too easy for me. I can hear you now 'oh, don't say that, it's not right to infer that s girl's a slag' - shut up. The only reason you aren't thinking it is because you wish you were her, anyway._

_"Yes, of course you can," he says with that warm smile that contrasts perfectly with eyes that are so blue you feel cold just looking into them._

_And so it's decided - the four of them are going horseback riding. Of course, they asked Nick and I to join, but Nick is too busy drumming on a fucking barrel to care, and I'd rather just take the piss out of them from over here. Roger, having very little choice in the matter, apparently, is looking just a bit crestfallen at the realisation that Maisie will be riding the horse with David instead of separately, which is probably what he would have preferred._

_So now we have David and Maisie climbing on top of this terrifying black mustang with a white stripe down his face. Unfortunately with horses it's very easy to tell what sex they are, and this one is most definitely and unashamedly male. David helps Maisie into the double saddle the instructor, or whoever they are, set up, and then climbs on himself while Roger and Cora are getting settled on their (separate) horses. Of course they're riding separate horses. You know, I'm not exactly a genius, but if Nick and Amelia were riding one horse together I'd at least have the emotional intelligence to make sure Jane and I did the same, if only to save myself from looking bad in comparison. Roger has no self-awareness._

_Cora's sitting atop a beautiful, majestic white mare with a little my name: perfect for her regal bearing and her mythic appearance. She could be a model; indeed, she probably should be, seeing as there's no way for her to make a satisfactory income using her brain. Roger's horse looks just like him: lanky, tall, and cinnamon brown in colour with a very long face. Roger, of course, doesn't have as cheerful a disposition as his equine companion._

_Maisie slides her arms around David from behind, pushing herself against him in the process, and he must feel very bothered (not in a negative way, naturally) by the feeling of her breasts pushing against his back and how they bounce while the august, nightmarish creature gallops around the pasture it's trapped in. The two of them are laughing, and I watch as her arms lock around his waist; she's gripping on to him for dear life as both of them have hair that's flying everywhere around them. I could cast them in some sort of Arthurian period piece and they'd look as if they came right out of the period without trying the way both of their hair flies about while they ride that horse together._

_Both Cora and Roger seem to have noticed how perfect the two of them look together, as well, albeit in their own ways: Cora's staring at them, despondent, almost jealous perhaps (you know she is)...maybe wondering what's wrong with her that her boyfriend won't do something like that with her, and why she doesn't feel so perfect when she's with him. Something, though not even I know exactly what (beyond the fact that he doesn't love her...it's separate from that)... something undefinable, something completely intangible and unknown to all of us...makes them estranged. He could love Cora to the best of his ability, and she to the best of hers, but something isn't quite right. Perhaps one day the truth will reveal itself, and I do hope I'm there to see it._

_Roger, however, is almost furious. I can see the hatred in his eyes when he sees the way Maisie's hair flows in the wind: long, chocolate twists flying up and down and this way and that, completely free and untamed, unable to bow to containment. The meat on her bottom end bounces tight along with her breasts, and I can see the envy oozing from his every pore like a stinking fucking threatened skunk. Cora gazes at him, but he pays her no mind: she's craving the kind of romantic connection that Maisie and David are clearly sharing, but both because Roger can't take a second to pay attention to her, and also because of whatever it else is between them, she can't attain it with him. Her face falls when she makes the connection, and she rides away from Roger, her piles of cornsilk hair bobbing up and down like a golden buoy being knocked about in the ocean. She picks up her speed to a delicate gallop, one that's easy on the creature and sure not to spook it, but that's when I see Roger start to get more and more enraged, and soon enough he starts to take it out on the poor horse, hitting it with his lanky legs like a maniac trying to get it to run faster._

_I've got a rather terrible feeling about this._

_My terrible feeling is confirmed when, riding at a terrifying speed, the mammoth creature eventually tires of Roger and throws him from its top right to the cold, dead ground, and dust kicks up a nasty tan cloud as he hits with a deafening thud. As his body collapses in a heap, head bouncing off the ground like a ball, he goes totally limp. He's crumpled up like waste thrown haphazardly away that's missed the bin._

_I vault the fence in a panic as the horse trots off, satisfied with the loss of the angry burden that was bothering him. As I reach him I notice Cora, Maisie and David all looking on, and both Cora and David halt their own horses to turn them around and trot them over, but Cora jumps down off of hers in a fury._

_"Roger!," she screams at the very top of her lungs in a panic. Her screams are bloodcurdling, enough to draw the attention of the staff member who had been helping everyone onto the horses in the first place. Having realised what's happened, he starts to run over as well, while Maisie and David are trotting over on their horse...at a considerably slower pace than perhaps is warranted._

_By the time Cora reaches Roger's crumpled body I've already made sure he still has a pulse (luckily, he does, I'd hate it if this stupid stunt killed him), but she pushes me out of the way to cradle his head close to her bountiful, welcoming chest. She couldn't be squeezing him any harder if she tried, and despite assurance that he's alive she can't stop screaming and sobbing. Her wails are like a banshee's: pathetic, painfully long, and so shrill it hurts one's ears._

_"It's alright, Cora," Maisie says as she wraps her arms around Cora's neck from the side, "Look, someone's coming to help. Let's stand back and let him look at Roger, okay?"_

_Somehow Maisie is able to snatch Cora away from Roger, but I can't be certain exactly how she did it because Cora had been clinging on for dear life to his body. Eventually it's agreed that Nick will drive Roger to the hospital in his van and that Cora will follow with Maisie and David in their car. I've been tasked with taking Amelia ad Jane home, damn it all. I'd loved to have seen whatever it was that's about to happen over at hospital, but feel free to tell me._


	44. David - Sussex, 2006 - David and Kim's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now we get David's answer about why he's been acting so strangely...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be cutting down to three chapters a week because I don't want you guys to get too close to me. I don't want to have to put this on hiatus so I can write Volume III. I'm about 70% done with this volume, but not finished yet!

To say I wasn't expecting my life to be turned upside down with the news would be a blatant understatement. A lie, even. Never, not for one solitary second, would I ever have thought that I'd hear from Nick Mason that not only was Maisie back in Cambridge, but also that she was staying with Syd Barrett. I remember the conversation as if it were yesterday, although it was only a few days ago, it feels longer than that now:

_"I guess you hadn't heard yet. Thought perhaps you'd talked to Roger or Rick, though I doubt if they'd know at this point,"_ Nick had said to me. 

_"Heard what?," I'd replied. I foolishly thought that it had to do with music. I mean, why wouldn't it? There really isn't much else the four of us talk about anymore besides the odd conversation between Nick and I, or Rick and I...and as far as I know, no one speaks much to Roger, and he hasn't much interest in speaking to either of us._

_"You're gonna want to sit down, mate."_

That's when I prepared for something big, but I wasn't at all prepared for what he was about to tell me. Not prepared at all. In fact, I was so unprepared that ... well, I'll tell you.

_"Well, what is it, then? I'm already sitting down. Just hit me with it."_

_"You sure? Better you find out from me than from another source, I think. So here goes. Well, Maisie's back. In Cambridge, that is."_

My mouth and my throat went dry. I started to choke. My chest went tight and I started to sweat. My head was spinning, and all of a sudden I felt like I was drowning in confusion and shock. It couldn't be.

I couldn't speak for a few minutes: it was too shocking. I couldn't find the words.

Nick let me sit with the news for awhile in the way that only he can: Nick has always been best at simply just sitting there and letting you figure your stuff out on your own before speaking. 

After a few moments of letting me digest he finally spoke.

_"You alright, then?"_

_"Yeah. Yeah, I am. I mean, I will be in a few minutes. It's just... I've been looking for her, you know? I've found a few addresses to send letters to, but...but none of them have ever worked."_

_"There's more, my friend. You'll want to stay seated for the second half of it."_

I remember thinking...how bad could it be? Is she down on her luck? Couldn't be. Nick had sent me the piece she wrote for The New York Times. She had to have been bringing in considerable money plus whatever was left from her parents. 

And then he hit me with it.

_"Go on,"_ I had said, thinking I was ready for anything, but oh, I wasn't ready.

_"She's staying with Syd."_

That was the point where I felt like I wanted to vomit.

_"Uh...well...I mean...why?"_

That was all I could manage to squeeze out. I remember how difficult that time was for her, but also for me, and for a lot of us in the band. Not just because of the way he hurt her, but also because of the way it felt to watch Syd fall apart. It was terrifying, disturbing and sad watching him become a shell of his former self, and when it all culminated in him locking her up that was the icing on the shit cake. I couldn't understand why, and still can't understand why she'd ever agree to go anywhere near him again, never mind stay with him at his house.

_"To tell you the truth, David...from what she told me it's because Syd is dying. She's taking care of him."_

That's her: always the first one to comfort a suffering person, and that monster knew it and for the second time took advantage of it. Syd's dying? How fucking sad, and I mean that with sarcasm. I feel no pity nor any sadness for him. Anything Syd had to offer the world of art and music became obsolete long ago, and I keep his music alive only so he has money to live on. But I suppose now that isn't something he needs to worry about.

That's about where the conversation ended, and since that day I've been off. I can't think straight. I rode out to Cambridge a few days later, and drove past Syd's house, foolishly. I wasn't even sure what to say if they caught me. It occurred to me for a second to stop, but what good would it do? What did I think was going to happen? What would even be the end result of me making that kind of stupid decision? I also toyed with sending flowers there for her, but I talked myself out of that one, as well. It seemed again that there would be no point, and that all I'd be doing was hurting her or putting her in a position to feel awkward or uncomfortable, which isn't at all what I want. I don't even know what I want. I never thought about the possibility of Maisie coming back to Cambridge to stay, because it's never happened as far as I'm aware. Not that anyone would have necessarily told me if it had, but I've been wracking my brain trying to find a way to get all these letters I have to her for years. They've all come back to me after I've sent them through the post, every single one...not one reached its intended destination. 

She asked me never to call when she left, you see, and so I haven't called. And even if I tried once or twice I had no way of knowing where she was living or what phone number to reach her at. I've been living with the regret of ever having listened to her request at all for decades now, and all of a sudden she's here, and it's torture. She's only a few hours away, and I know exactly where she is, and what's worse is that now that I know she's there I realise I've been feeling as if something was wrong with me for months now: something I couldn't define or explain, but I realised I'd only temporarily forgotten. It's her energy, the energy I was so acutely tuned into for all those years. I felt it when she got here...I just never knew for sure that's what it was until Nick told me.

I saw a black Lexus in Syd's driveway, and I knew it must be one she had been renting. I noticed some sprucing up around the front yard that I knew must have been her influence. I noticed that the people milling about didn't seem to be quite so spooked passing by Syd's place, and I wondered then if he'd been soothed by her presence and perhaps his infamous fits had ceased. I wondered if they're happy there in that strange little house with the deep blue door that used to be white, and if they're something more than just friends... something more than old lovers who are spending one's last days together. Is she sleeping in his bed? I'm having a hard time avoiding that thought. It isn't at all fair: we spent 16 years together where we did some damage to one another, as all people in relationships are wont to do, but nothing...and I mean nothing … like what Syd did. We had our fair share of arguments, sure, and we said some things out of frustration that we wished later that we could have taken back...there was that thing she did where she just needed to see if she could get a ride out of me and she'd push and prod until I'd finally give in and get angry. There were the times when I'd want so badly to be able to connect with her, and tell her how sad or how depressed I was feeling, but instead I could only manage to grunt a few words at her, then predictably snap at her, and tear off into my studio for a few hours. It wasn't all perfect, but never, never, not once did I do something so awful as to lock her on a closet for five whole days without food and without even a glimpse of light. Yet here I am...with Kim, and there she is ...with the guy that locked her up in a closet.

Kim.

Fuck, what about Kim?

Why on Earth is my wife an afterthought to me all of a sudden? 

Fine. I have absolutely not been a devoted husband for these past years. My mind and heart have constantly wandered. I've spent more than my fair share of nights awake hidden in our closet with my box full of memories... remembering that day when I took that photo of her that she hated so much she made me pretend I threw it away, or pleasuring myself to the memory of her in those red silk panties. I've read over that newspaper clipping so many times that I am pretty sure I'm halfway to understanding it now. I've done as well as I can being someone who's unable to put another woman behind him, but most days I have been able to devote myself to my marriage enough that I can start to trick myself into believing it, and I'm always able to trick her into thinking I do.

But now it's gotten so difficult for me to maintain it all, this whole charade I've been putting up, that I can tell the whole mask is starting to crack, and she's starting to notice. 

I've been so very lucky to have Kim, and blessed that she's given me such a beautiful, loving family. I adore my children, and my grandchildren (one of whom is asleep next to me as I speak to you), and I have a lot of love for Kim, but I'm not in love with her. Maybe I am, in my way...I love her enough that we've had six children together, and I enjoy her company and always have, but it isn't the same. It was never the same. And I guess I've always thought that perhaps Maisie could never recreate the feeling, either, since she's never married or had her own children, and I suppose that some part of me may have been relieved by that.

It's a bit selfish of me to want that, isn't it? For me to want her to not have moved on? I don't mean to be selfish, especially considering I did (to an extent) move on…

Kim.

That brings my mind right back around to Kim, and how she's undoubtedly noticed how my behavior has been different. I know she has, because she's mentioned it to me. 

_"What is it, dear,"_ she asked me the other day. She's always trying to get me to talk to her about my feelings, and has been for all the years we've been together. She is desperate to know how I'm feeling and why...all the time. Any time I sigh, or close my eyes for too long, or do anything that could even denote a negative mood she has to know every detail. I've successfully evaded these discussions most of the time, and eventually she backs off, but recently she's been especially persistent because no I think she can tell this time is different.

It's her birthday in three days, and I've been so beside myself and in shock...indeed, nearly in agony...that I haven't even planned a party as I always have done, and I don't know what kind of excuse to make that will satisfy her and spare her from the utter disappointment she's going to feel. She's going to be crushed. I'm not sure exactly how I'm supposed to carry on like this, disappointing and hurting my wife and myself. It simply isn't possible to throw together a whole affair in a few days, but maybe given a week I could…

Maisie always planned wonderful parties. I never had to take care of anything, really, because she was always so adept at coordinating everything and making sure everyone had responded. She could corral 30 people into one place easily, especially with help from Cora (back in the days before Cora disappeared). The music was right (and I never had to lift a finger for that unless the mood struck me), the food was delicious, the desserts were always all baked by her with help from a silent but very interested Jane (this was the only thing they ever did together). Her outfits were spectacular and the house was perfectly decorated. Everything worked when Maisie planned a party. She could do this in a week if she were here, but she isn't.

She isn't here. I'm left to try to throw something together on my own when I don't want to see anybody all for Kim's sake. She loves her birthday parties, as do all the kids and the grandkids.

If I don't get out of this depression at least for a little while I won't be able to summon the will to plan anything.

And the root of my depression is this: she's here with the man I saved her from...and she hasn't bothered to try to find me. But then I realise...I never really tried to find her...so why would she?


	45. Cora - Cambridge, 1969 - Addenbrooke's Hospital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora agonizes over Roger's accident and wonders how on Earth she'll ever be able to impress his mother now.

_What a disaster._

_I should have made him ride the horse with me, but he was so insistent that he had to do it on his own. I should have told him that was all well and good, but that he had never ridden a horse before, and that he might not know what he was doing. I should have known he'd get hurt. I should have known._

_I was just so angry at him. I was so angry at him that I let this happen. What kind of a girlfriend am I that I'd let my boyfriend go into such a new and dangerous situation all on his own, all because I was so angry at him? I should have … I should have been a better girlfriend to him, and made sure that no matter what happened he'd be safe. Instead, I...I rode off so fast I never noticed he was going too fast and that he was pushing the horse too hard. By the time I realised...well, it was simply too late._

_I heard his scream before he fell, and I turned my head right as he was falling, and then I saw his poor head bounce off the cold, hard ground like a small child's ball. All because I was too angry at him to stop him from riding on his own. I'm such a bad girlfriend._

_I was angry because he didn't even ask if I wanted to ride with him after seeing that Maisie and David were riding together. I thought he would notice for a second that maybe I would want to do the same. Just like with the party, he didn't even think for a second that maybe I'd want to wear matching costumes too. He decided he was going to dress up like Dracula. So now I have to come up with a costume that matches that, and I guess after seeing Maisie and David looking so happy and perfect today I was perhaps the teeniest bit jealous of them. I was so angry at my poor Roger, and now he's here in this dreadful hospital all knocked out cold like a poor, sweet dummy. What am I ever going to do? How can I ever make his mother think I'd be a good wife for her son now that this has happened? I was so ready to make a good impression. I was going to bring wine and dessert over, and help her prepare dinner, and offer to clean it up all on my own. I was going to wow her with how I was able to sit quietly and wait patiently to speak and defer to her on every chance I got, and I was going to be extra attentive to Roger's needs so she'd see that I'd be the perfect wife for him(though we haven't talked about marriage yet, but I do think he'll propose eventually)._

_Now that he's had all this harm come to him there's no way she'd ever trust me to take care of her son. My plans are ruined._

_And beyond that...what if he doesn't make it out of this? The doctor said he should be fine...they did all sorts of tests on him and I'm sitting here now waiting for Maisie and David to come back from the cafeteria with food and coffee for us. I don't think that the others are coming, or if they are they're not here yet. I don't really want them here, anyway. Having my best friend and her... boyfriend (?) is more than enough for me, and I doubt Roger would want a ton of people around when he wakes up. He's going to be so cranky, my goodness. Not to mention how angry he's going to be with me…_

_He's going to be right furious with me, isn't he? As well he should be...I let him go off in such a dangerous situation even though I knew better._

_Somehow, though, this is the most peaceful my Roger has looked in months. Now that he's free from all his troubles, I suppose he looks as if he can finally rest. Each night I sleep next to him the more I notice his tossing and turning...the way he moans in his sleep, almost like he's in anguish over something, but what? What could he possibly be torturing himself with? I swear he's cried in his sleep. That's part of why I stay: he needs someone to love him, and I truly do love him._

_I can't stop thinking of the way he fell, and how he looked so crumpled and wasted there on the ground: lifeless. I was terrified that we'd lst him...not just me, but his band. The world, even. Roger could have been so great, I found myself thinking. He could have changed so many lives, and now he won't have the chance. Now the world will be deprived of a visionary who will wake them up to so many things, I thought. And yes, I agonised also for the love I'd have lost, for the wonderful man that I love, but my first thought was that it's so much more than me. Roger is so much more than my boyfriend. Roger will go on to accomplish and revolutionise so many things, and luckily we didn't lose out on that today._

_Oh, I can hear Maisie and David chatting as they approach the room. Thank goodness they're back, but at the same time I'm so jealous of the way I notice him smiling at her as they walk in even though there's no reason to smile. He can't help it. I wish Roger couldn't help it. I wish that when he looked at me he would smile like that instead of just looking so ambivalent or annoyed. I am so jealous of the way David takes Maisie seriously, the way he indulges her and considers her...the way he teases her. I wish I could have that. Maybe this experience will knock Roger around a bit. Maybe it will make him not take me for granted anymore._

_"How's Roger?," Maisie asks me as she places my soup and chicken on the table next to Roger's bed and hands me my coffee._

_She rests a small, gentle hand on my shoulder and then starts to rub my shoulders and my temples as I sip on my coffee, and the way it hits me...both her touch and the strong coffee she made me...it gives me immediate relief. I almost feel back to normal, but then I look over at Roger, trying to figure out what answer to give her, and it shakes all the normal away._

_"He's...well, he's certainly knocked out, but the doctor said despite some damage to his head he should probably be alright. It's just a matter of waiting until he wakes up and seeing how he is."_

_David stands next to Maisie and almost reaches out to place his arm around her shoulder, but stops himself. He's so beautiful. David is so, so beautiful._

_"I'm sure he'll wake up soon good as new," she reassures me._

_"Do you need anything else?," David asks as I turn around to look into his concerned sky blue eyes, "Anything at all, just ask."_

_"Seriously, Cora. We're here for you."_

_"Thank you both. You're my family. Oh, my wretched mother wouldn't even come. I called her to please come sit with me, and she refused. Said Roger had it coming, riding like a madman on that poor horse. She wouldn't even do it for me."_

_"That's why we're here," Maisie whispers as she wraps her arms around my shoulders from behind me. She's so warm._

_Her body is so warm, and I welcome the warmth...I need it. The way my mother talked about Roger has left me in such a sour mood. Everyone seems to talk about him that way except for Maisie. Even David talks about him that way, but it's not as if Roger makes it easy for David to be his friend. I often wonder why he is so nasty to him, but Roger will never tell me._

_"Wonder when the old chap'll wake up," David thinks aloud as he sits down on another chair in the room and starts to drink his own cup of coffee. Maisie looks at him in such a way where I think she's scolding him for bringing that up, but not seriously. It looks like a little bit of a smile… A 'you devil' look. "I think I'm gonna go have a cigarette," he adds, "I'll leave you ladies be."_

_He rumples her hair like he always does before he leaves, and she smiles, but I can tell she's trying to conceal it for my sake. When he's gone she pulls the chair up next to mine and lays her head on my shoulder. Her hair spills down over my chest, and I reach for her hand._

_"Do you think he'll be okay?," I ask._

_"Yeah, I do. The doctors said he would be."_

_"You know, I'm blaming myself over and over again for this. I should have made him get on the horse with me instead of letting him ride off on his own. I was so irresponsible, and now he's hurt. I don't know if he'll be the same after this. What if he loses all his talent, or something?"_

_"That's not gonna happen. Nothing could tear the brilliance from Roger. I doubt he'd ever let that happen. He takes his music so seriously! And why are you blaming yourself for this at all?"_

_"Because I let him go by himself instead of…"_

_She pulls her arms away and looks at me with a stern, but loving loving gaze. Her eyes are warm, but I can tell she doesn't agree with me._

_"Don't you go blaming yourself when he did this all on his own. He asked you to ride alone; what were you supposed to do, beg him?"_

_"I could have insisted."_

_"Come on, love. You know how Roger is. An excellent salesman couldn't convince him of anything. Once he's made up his mind his mind is made up, and that's that."_

_"I suppose you're right, but what does that say about me as a girlfriend?"_

_"That you try the best you can?," she poses to me, "That you very clearly love him more than anyone else in the world, and you're only willing to try so much before you refuse to lose your dignity by begging?"_

_"You're always bringing me back down to the ground, Maisie. You're my best friend."_

_She pauses for a moment, considering what I just said, almost like she's trying to figure out how to navigate how she wants to reply._

_"You're my best friend here. Besides David, I mean. I have...I have a best friend back in Massachusetts named Gloria."_

_It hurts a little, but I can tell she doesn't love me sny less than I love her, and so it's not all that bad. She wraps her arms around me again, and she's so warm still and smells so nice that I simply cannot bear it, so I return her embrace this time._

_"That's alright. I know you love me, you silly imp."_

_"That I do, my dear," she whispers._

_There's a stirring coming from Roger's bed, and with that he's opened his eyes._


	46. Maisie - Cambridge, April 2006 - Don Pasquale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora gives her toast as Rosemary causes trouble.

With dinner safely behind us, I'm sipping my latte while Cora and Judy look over the dessert menu. I decided awhile ago what I wanted: tiramisu. It's been a long while since I had a good piece of tiramisu cake. 

Cora looks up at me nervously, but she breaks out into a smile and giggles.

"I hate to ask this, but will you share some of my dessert? I am going to eat some of it, I swear, but I simply can't bring myself to eat it all. I'm sorry: it's just not in me!" 

"Excuse me, babe, but I'll share some of that dessert."

"Yeah, Cora. You just gonna give the fat lady all the extra sugar?"

Judy bursts out laughing while Cora blushes a deep shade of red, rolling her eyes at me and eventually slapping my arm after a few moments of embarrassed, nervous laughter.

"First of all, you're a curvy bloody goddess and you need to get used to it and stop calling yourself fat. Second of all, I wasn't even thinking that, silly. And third," she says as she turns to her beautiful girlfriend, "I'd be delighted to share my dessert with you, my love."

When they kiss I notice Rosemary shooting them another disgusted, indignant glance out of the corner of her eye: a glance that alone could stab them both to death. Her eyes are frigid. If they were grey I'd like them to cold steel that would fry a fae on sight. She curls her bony hand into a fist and clenches her teeth shut like a clamp, and her lips soon follow, pursing and growing ever more into a cat's asshole as each moment passes. 

"Perhaps a crowded restaurant isn't the best place to be indecent, ladies? These things are more appropriate for inside one's bedroom, I think."

Judy's eyes now turn cold and I could swear I watched hit lightning bolt through her body as she stares Rosemary straight in the face and cocks her head a little bit. 

"Excuse me?"

Her tone is unmistakable: she's gonna fly into a rage if someone doesn't intervene, but I'm starting to flood with bad memories of the last time Cora and I ate here, and I'm feeling a little bit paralyzed. I tug on Cora's shirt and give her a look, a look that says 'can you stop this?', and she nods, clearly understanding the message I'm trying to convey. When Rosemary balks in response, ready to retreat because she's a fucking coward who can talk a big game but won't actually ever act on her rage, Judy just starts to become more and more confrontational. She looks Rosemary straight in the face one more time and as she opens her mouth Cora squeezes her hand that she banged on the table.

"Ladies, I think I'll do the toast before Jan comes back, and then we can crack open this lovely bottle of wine."

She's able to calm Judy, who takes in a deep, exaggerated breath and shuts her eyes tight to calm herself, presumably before she flips the table and chases Rosemary off. Judy nods at Cora and pats her hand gently before she pulls it away and rests her hands in her lap. Cora pulls the bottle of rose' from it's icy bucket and pops it open. At first she gathers up all four of our wine glasses, but then she pauses in front of Rosemary and sets her glass back down in front of her. I can't help but wonder if that was maybe done on purpose: sort of a passive aggressive dig at her being uptight. Seriously, there's declining alcohol because you simply don't like it, and then there's going out of your way to tell everyone who's drinking that they're 'improper'. They're two very different things. One is understandable (and something I often do), and the other is completely unnecessary.

She pours the three of us our pink, sparkling wine, and lifts her glass as she stands up. I hate when she makes an occasion out of these toasts, but I can't help but smile because it means so much to her.

"Get on with it, you ham," Judy laughs as she smacks Cora's ass.

Cora clears her throat and lifts her glass. Her eyes settle on me after she reads the room to see if anyone is paying attention, and luckily not many people are.

"My darling, darling Maisie," she starts off, and I can feel my face heating up the way it does when anyone compliments me, "When I say that I can't believe you're getting married it isn't because of anything to do with you. It is because I never would have thought that you'd have it in your heart…" she shoots a quick glance at Rosemary, testing the waters, but decides to continue, "...to forgive and to love someone who hurt you so terribly. But I shouldn't be surprised: you always saw past the illness even when no one else could…" another glance at Rosemary, who looks incensed, "...and your kindness and ability to forgive knows very few bounds. Anyone would be lucky to call you their wife, as accomplished, kind, loving and smart as you are, but I believe you've picked the one you were supposed to do this with all along. It has been a blessing to have you back in my life, and I look forward to finally meeting this incredible man you're always talking and gushing to me about. The best of luck to you in your very blessed marriage, my love."

I'm starting to tear up, and I notice that Cora is, too, but Rosemary just looks offended. As she deserves to, I guess, seeing as she devoted so much of her life and energy to caring for Syd for so many years. I do think Cora may have gone a bit too far there, and so I reach my hand out to pat Rosemary on the arm. She gives me a venomous look, one that signals how much Cora's remark hurt her, and I can feel the pain that's radiating off her. For the first time this evening, I think she's got a right to be angry, but after what she said to Cora and Judy, I'm not about to jump to her defense publicly. I'll talk to her privately about it.

She manages to squeeze out a small smile and then brushes me off almost as quickly as she welcomed my touch. I shrug, unsure whether she wants me to actually do more or not, and then turn my eyes back to Cora, who's waiting expectantly for my response. My eyes are filling with tears, both because I'm so touched by her toast and because I'm feeling secondhand sadness for Rosemary that I can't shake. Even I will say how much Rosemary sacrificed because of her love of her brother though I don't like her much at all, and even though I don't agree with everything she was doing before I came here (or at least what I've been told and what I could tell). So to say I'm the only one who loved him despite his illness...well, that was really, really harsh.

"I love you, Cora. I'm so happy I reached out to you and we reconnected. I can't imagine my bachelorette party without you here."

"Don't lie: you couldn't imagine a bachelorette party at all, you player. Thought you'd be breaking hearts forever, didn't you?"

"Well, let's just say I wasn't on the market to settle down with anybody," I reply sheepishly with a shrug of my shoulders. 

Cora sits down, the three of us all clink our glasses and drink our wine. I'm a little thrown off guard: it's been almost a year since I've had alcohol of any kind. I better not get drunk on the night before my wedding. Tomorrow has to be perfect, because it's the least my baby deserves, and when I finally tell him exactly how I feel I want to be at 100% so that when I'm old and nearing my own end I can remember with utmost clarity the beauty of the moment.

I haven't told anyone I love them in a romantic way since the last time I said it to David...right before I walked out the door. That was 20 years ago, that I last told someone I loved them. I got close to saying it to Carol, but I ran the fuck away from her as soon as I realized I had feelings. That was just who I was then. 

So even if I do have this second glass of wine, I think I am definitely going to have to pace myself. Nothing can ruin tomorrow. Nothing. Not even Rosemary


	47. Roger - Cambridge, 1969 - St. Addenbrooke's Hospital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger wakes up unsure of anything other than he feels a little bit torn between the three people who've shown up in his hospital room.

_I don't know who these women are. I don't know where I am, or how I've gotten here. I don't even know if I've ever been to hospital before. It's all too much to take in; I feel overwhelmed, and like I must have gone batty. They say I fell off a horse, but I can't recall ever riding a horse before in my life._

_The blonde one says she's my girlfriend, but looking at both her and the brunette I think they're lying to me about it. Playing a cruel trick. I like softer girls, I think, and the blonde one is flat as a board. Still, when she took me in her arms as I'd just woken up, I felt comforted. I felt close to the blonde one somehow, but kept my eyes on the brunette as she was holding me._

_She says her name is Cora. Cora Harlow. Says the brunette is Maisie Wells. I like them both for different reasons, I think. Cora is sweet. Very perky. She laughs quite a bit, seemingly for no reason, and that makes me feel comforted, too. I like her hair and eyes and the way she smells, but it doesn't seem like a fit for me. She doesn't seem like a girl I'd choose, or at least not the me I know myself to be as of right now. She has a good body, though...nice and tight. Slim. And she's quite beautiful, really, but it doesn't seem like maybe she has as big a brain as I'd like. Still, if she is my girlfriend, I suppose it wouldn't be a problem. I think I could learn to love her._

_The brunette... Maisie...that seems like a girl I'd choose. She's quiet. Shy. Seems aloof, I'd like to get to know her. Crack the shell. Make her smile for once. She's got one of those real nice Marilyn Monroe bodies with the sexiest bit of padding that I'd really like to squeeze. Her hair is certainly more interesting than Cora's: long, wild curls. She looks like she doesn't have to try._

_Cora must be the one who's my girlfriend, though, because when I woke up it was Cora, not Maisie, who flung her arms around me before I even had room to remember who I was or where I was, or how I even got there. Maisie, by contrast, seemed unphased when I woke up. She seemed more interested in seeing Cora happy than seeing me safely woken up, and so I can only suppose that she is indeed not my girlfriend, which is a shame._

_They tell me I'm in a rather famous band called Pink Floyd, which I think is a stupid name. I think whoever named it could have done so much better... Pink Floyd is just too strange. I haven't met the blokes they say I'm in the band with yet...do you think we're a good band? I'd guess so, if we're famous like the girls say we are._

_Cora told me we were out picking apples when she suggested we all go horse riding. She said I insisted on riding off by myself, and then I pushed the horse too hard and it threw me off. I hit my head, she said, and now I don't remember anything about who I am or who they are. I'm trying my hardest to remain calm about it, but part of me feels very scared. I don't think I can talk to Cora about it, but maybe I can try. Presumably I'm going to go home with her whenever I can get out of here, but she's just left to go round the cafeteria and get me something to eat. She's left me here with Maisie, who doesn't seem to want to talk to me a all, but I'm not sure why. I'm not sure what I did to her that makes her hate me so much, but I must have done something that was pretty awful, or she wouldn't give me the cold shoulder like this. It bothers me, but I'm not sure why. I don't want anyone to hate me. I'd much prefer to be well-liked. I hope overall I am well-liked by other people, and that this is just a fluke._

_She’s sitting just a bit too far away from me for my taste, next to the doorway in a rather stiff, uncomfortable steel legged hospital chair. Her dark chocolate spiraling waterfalls of hair fall around her face and her hands are folded in her lap...she's closed off: shut down. I’m only staring at her because she’s paying me no mind; I don’t think I’m daring enough to stare at somebody that might notice me doing so. In fact, I think I must be sort of a coward because I’m growing more and more mortified by every utterly grueling, draining moment that passes, but I’m not sure why. She’s not intimidating, or is she?_

_“Are...were...we friends?,” I finally vomit without thinking, unsure of how else to approach the topic. It's strange how I don't know how to speak to Maisie, but speaking with Cora feels so natural._

_She looks up at me, and her eyes are wide with surprise, but beneath the veneer of surprise is a layer of deadly, black ice that doesn’t seem as if it can be cracked, or melted. Her lips are pursed, her expression one of dire disinterest. I'm intrigued. I must deserve this, and I'm not really objecting to the punishment. Something about her disdain is intoxicating._

_“No,” she responds with a flat, droning disinterest as she turns her eyes instead to her nails and her gentle, tiny hand. There is no more veneer of surprise, only the terrible, freezing reality of her hatred. It wasn't soon after being caught off guard that she drifted back underneath her clouded glacier._

_“Not at all?”_

_“Not at all. I’m here for Cora, not for you.”_

_Ouch. She doesn't even think twice before wounding me. It doesn't matter at all to her whether or not her words have any effect on me: she can just spit such harsh truth at me without even a spare second to consider how it might make me feel. There's a chill running up and down my spine: the nastier she is to me, the more hypnotized I seem to become._

_“Why aren’t we friends?”_

_There's a roll of earthy brown eyes so cold the very expression shanks me like an icy dagger right through my very open heart. A huff of exasperation: 'Do I really need to waste my time talking to you?' I feel an urge for Cora to come back if only to save me from Maisie's tantalizing derision._

_“We’re exes. I’m nice to you because Cora’s my good friend, but I don’t like you at all.”_

_Her voice is deep and husky. A sarcastic sounding American accent, but since I can’t remember if I’ve ever been to America before I’m not sure what kind of American accent it is. I wonder if I’ve ever been to America...do you think anyone knows? Maybe the other guys in my band know and will tell me._

_“Oh...I see.”_

_That hurts very much, but I can’t see a reason why it would. After all...I don’t know this girl from Adam, and yet...I don’t much like the idea of her hating me. Anyone would feel bad about this, I think. A few stony, sad moments pass that see me sitting there twiddling my thumbs, and I swear I can hear the clock tick with every moment that goes by where she doesn’t speak to me or look at me. It’s very awkward sitting in a room with someone you can tell can’t stand your mere presence. I have to change her mind, but why? Why, when I’ve got this much better girl on her way back here for me right as we speak?_

_“I’m sorry…” I manage to spit after a few moments “...it’s just that I...I have no idea who I am or how I got here or why, and I was wondering if perhaps maybe...you’d...help me remember something.”_

_“Cora can help you with that,” she responds in a dry, exasperated voice. Her hands are shaking and her lips are set in a tight, straight line, and she calms herself by twisting a finger around in her hair._

_I look down at my hand and spot a silver ring...a thick band, almost like a class ring, but it’s got an emerald green stone. Something about it brings me a lot of comfort as I’m sitting here waiting impatiently for Cora to return so I can feel not so alone and cold. I feel completely frozen by Maisie’s unwillingness to even so much as look at me. If Cora were to come back, well, I'd feel much safer. I wouldn't feel like I were left hanging out to dry in the rain._

_“I’m not asking Cora, though,” I continue, “I’m asking you. I’d like to maybe act like I know a little something about Cora, maybe surprise her, you know?”_

_Now she raises her head, and maybe there’s a hint of a smile there as the corners of her eyes turn up, and her full lips soon follow. I've got her. I don’t know what I said, but I’ve got her, and so perhaps now we can move on and get better acquainted. I don't know why I feel so desperate to keep her from further humiliating me. She's not even trying to humiliate me, and yet I feel so humiliated by her...but I'm not angry at her. I'm not even that upset; I just want it to be different._

_“You’re really not yourself,” she muses, “The Roger I know wouldn’t want to know how to surprise Cora for any reason. Yeah, I’ll help you out. What do you want to know?”_

_Now that I've opened up the lines of communication a bit I suppose I've gotten myself into surprising Cora, and so I better just roll with it._

_"What's Cora's…" I struggle to come up with anything until I think of Cora and her sweet smiling face and the way her skin glistens with a healthy bronze colour that has me wondering if it's real. "... favourite colour?"_

_"Definitely pink," Maisie says, "no question about that."_

_"And...what's your favourite colour?"_

_"Me?"_

_"Yeah, you. Is anyone else here?"_

_"Indigo."_

_"That's an interesting choice."_

_"I guess," she says in a bored tone of voice, and then I notice her eyes drift toward the doorway. They're all lit up now that I've noticed: sparkling as the light hits them, all mischievous and maybe even shy, but not the way she's so standoffish with me...no, not like that. Her lips curl into a smile, she's caught eyes with someone. Maybe Cora's come back finally, and I can feel safe again, but then I'd have to be in this room with both of them, and that would be so terribly uncomfortable as I'm quite sure I fancy them both._

_I'm ready for Cora to come in and sit next to me and make this whole thing not feel so terrible, but in walks this unbelievable looking man. He's so beautiful that I feel like I've been blown back into the wall and should have gone through it, but it refused to break. I suppose I like men, too? That's interesting. I have to, because that's exactly how I felt when I saw both Cora and Maisie._

_I've never seen another man before who was quite this stunningly beautiful. He's majestic; he's incredible. He's earth shattering. No wonder she's looking at him like that. I want to be jealous of him, but I might be jealous of her. Is that her boyfriend? She shouldn't be able to score a guy like him. He's too beautiful for everyone in this entire hospital, and I haven't even looked in the mirror to see what I look like yet, but I'm positive he's too beautiful for me._

_He's got these blue eyes... these azure blue eyes that reflect every bit of light in the room... they're a perfect blue unlike any other blue I've ever seen occur naturally, and his lips are so perfect and full that I could kiss them and never stop. His bone structure is so perfect I want to squeeze every inch of his angular, meticulously sculpted face. This man wasn't born: someone created him. Someone took their time with him and thought of every detail. Do you think he dyes his hair that shade of blonde, or is it natural? Even his beard is perfect, and his body is just divine. I mean it's godly. It's so strong and hard, like a man's body should be._

_"Eh, he's awake," the god crows in a gentle, dreamy voice as he smiles at Maisie, and then at me. "Hey, chap," he says as he places his hand on Maisie's shoulder._

_They're definitely together. Look at the tender way they're looking at one another, and how they exchange a knowing glance thinking others can't see it happening between them. I can't decide if I want one of them or both. I would love to be in the middle of them in some capacity. But then I remember Cora, my supposed girlfriend - do you think that she'd join in with us? I've never heard of a four person relationship, but it might be worth a try for three people as wonderful as these._

_"Yeah, he's been up for a few minutes now, and we're just waiting for Cora to come back. He was in the middle of asking me some questions about her."_

_"Questions about Cora? Is this our Roger?"_

_He walks over and sits on the corner of my bed, and I feel like I want to die. This is awful._

_"No, he's having a little trouble remembering some things."_

_"Great," the godlike being mutters as he considers me. I can feel whatever I might have left in my stomach begging to come up having him so close to me. "Just in time for the gig this weekend and all the recording we have. Guess we cancel it all if we have to, mate, but I hope it doesn't come to that."_

_My heart's racing, and it's gonna break right through my chest if I'm not careful._

_"I could probably do it. What um...what instrument do I play?"_

_Wow, that silence is deafening. One could hear a pin drop in here, and yet I've never heard anything quite so loud as the silence that's hanging over the three of us as he stares me down._

_"You, uh...you play bass, Roger. You play a lot of instruments, and you do some singing. You write most of the lyrics. You're pretty important."_

_Well, that's nice to know, but now I'm terrified to let all these people down. The beautiful god (still hasn't offered me his name, and I'm too tongue tied to ask), Maisie, Cora, and whoever the other people I'm in this band with are. I wouldn't want to let people down; I hope I'm the sort who's dependable and comes through for others, especially my girlfriend and my bandmates._

_"Oh. That's rather good to hear. Am I any good at any of it?"_

_Both Maisie and this beautiful man smile at one another, and it looks like a knowing smile they're sharing. Am I bad at what I do? How would the band get famous if I were bad at everything? I'm sure if I'm rubbish at anything I could get better at it._

_"You're a passable instrumentalist. Room for improvement. You're a great composer though, and a great lyricist."_

_"That's good to know. I don't remember your name, though."_

_He looks back at Maisie, whose shoulders rise and fall with confusion as she looks back at him, and the corner of her mouth turns up in a sympathetic half-smile when she notices that my eyes have drifted over to her._

_She's so pretty. So cute. But somehow that isn't my favourite thing about her, but I can't qualify what it is because I can't remember what I knew about her before. She looks like when she's with people she likes...not me...she's probably so nice and warm and interesting and maybe even in some way fun, but she doesn't look wild. She's a good match for this bloke, even if I don't want her to be, because he seems like he's real down to earth and wouldn't want a dirty type of girl, anyway. He seems like he's the same way: warm and kind, sweet and fun. Like he knows how to have a good time, but doesn't need to go bonkers. I can only imagine with a stinging kind of envy the way they must love each other, the way they must hold one another at night and kiss one another tenderly, and I wish I could be in the middle of it, or that Cora and I could be in the middle of it._

_Both of them seem flabbergasted at the way I can't remember anything. I wonder what I was like before I got hurt that makes them so confused by the way I'm acting, but it might just be that it's strange for a grown person not to know themselves or anyone else, and indeed...I feel like my mind has broken._

_"I'm David," he says as he sticks out his hand, and he flashes a warm smile at me as I take it and I can feel a chill shooting up my spine when our hands touch. I wish Cora would come back; it makes me so nervous to feel this way about a man, and I can't even tell anyone._

_"I'm Roger, I guess," I reply, and I'm so nervous I can barely speak. Forget coming up with something clever to say. With the two of them in here I feel like I'm going to waste away to nothing, shrivel up and die._

_"Don't worry, Rog. I'll help you figure out your way around a bass again, alright? You just need to lay off me in the studio from now on. I'm trying my hardest on that Echoes song, I really am, but it's a long one. We haven't done a song that long since Atom Heart Mother, and we never do that one live so I just haven't had a lot of practise. It's just a lot. So if you can do that, if you can help me out and lay off, I'll help you out with figuring out the bass again, yeah?"_

_"I'm sorry if I've been a prat in the studio. I don't remember it, obviously, but I'll be better from now on. I don't even know what I'd have to be angry at you for."_

_"Look at this, he doesn't remember how much he thinks I suck on the guitar, hah."_

_David reaches over and lands a gentle, playful punch on my arm, and now Maisie smiles...both of them are smiling at me, and I can feel my cheeks getting hot._

_Finally, before I can make an ass out of myself, Cora comes waltzing back into the room with a tray of food for me and some water and a cup of coffee. My god, I'm lucky to have her._

_And as for that nickname, Rog? I think I rather like it._


	48. Rosemary - Cambridge, April 2006 - The Varsity Hotel and Spa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosemary gives her account of the evening while listening to Cora and Maisie talk...with a twist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: graphic descriptions

Those old slags think I'm asleep, but I've decided to stay awake listening to them without their knowledge to see what they really think when they think they're alone: what they'll say when they don't think they need to censor themselves. But first off, let me tell you of the abject horror that's been this dismal night.

It started out awful, even. From the moment that old bat showed up at my house I knew she wanted nothing to do with me. I knew I was only being invited along to appease my brother, and not because she had any real interest in actually having me along. She couldn't have made it any more obvious, I feel, unless she had come out and said that she would rather I sit home alone with my precious puppy (which I'm starting to think I would have much preferred, and who, by the way, I can tell May hates - and that makes me distrust her even more. What type of person could hate my perfect little angel?). And then that haughty old priss Cora came with her mongrel 'girlfriend' (don't even get me started on that ridiculousness and perversion) and the bullying started. What behaviour. Excluding me, clearly talking about me in that room without a care for whether or not I was listening (I was - I heard every blasted word those bitches said about me), leaving me in that restaurant to go outside and do drugs. They just reeked of marijuana, they did, like a cackling pack of teenagers: a gaggle of old, used up teenagers, at that. And they've since used it again when we got back to this awful, ostentatious hotel -far too ostentatious than is appropriate -, right before they went swimming and dipped into the hot tub while laughing like the bunch of nasty queen bee schoolgirls that they are, and I sat by doing my number games because I'd really rather not lower myself to the standards of behaviour of women who smoke marijuana in hotels. Cora Harlow even paid off a nice young man at the front desk not to say anything about their drug use when it was strictly prohibited, and the young man agreed...despite his proper judgment, I'd be willing to bet. Imagine not caring at all for rules, for sticking to the rules set both by your society for appropriate behaviour for one's old age, and the rules set for patrons of a facility... especially when what one is shirking all the rules for is completely illegal and could jeopardise everyone around you. Do they not care that I've a reputation to uphold in this community? If I were arrested...well, I cannot even entertain the thought, but if I were, can you imagine the reaction from all the neighbours? Whatever would people say about me? I'm the only living member of this blasted broken family that farmers any respect from anyone worth anything to the world, the worst that could happen would be for me to be disgraced.

And that's not even covering the horrible embarrassment that was watching all of them squeeze their aged, flabby bodies into dresses that were much too young and tartly for a trio of old women while May sat next to me and tried so desperately to get me to embarrass myself in such a way as if I myself have no shame. Well, do I have news for those used up sluts: I do have shame: in fact, I have enough shame to go around, and I'd be happy to share it with them if it meant they'd stop being so bloody embarrassing. I wouldn't dare to allow myself to walk into such a fine establishment as Don Pasquale looking like a sausage stuffed into that tiny black dress like May thought she could do. And Cora Harlow is still a showy old slag herself, although she has more of a right to be dressing like a loose 22 year old than May does. May telling me she exercises as if it was in any way believable was also a highlight of the evening. Let's not kid ourselves about her being fat - by old fashioned standards before everyone and their mother got fat May is certainly fat. It matters very little that she carries it all in her bottom half - such large legs and hips and such a fat arse are not desirable qualities. It matters very little, in my opinion, that she's got youthful skin and somehow maintains beautiful silver curls into her old age (though I suspect she dyed it): the fatness simply invalidates it. I saw all those people stare at her: all the men of her age with their mouths hanging open like salivating dogs, all the women with squared, disapproving eyes. And then how much she ate...it's such a disaster. She is such a bloody trainwreck. Gluttony, lust, wrath, greed...add it all in with the rampant desire to never have to grow up and really and truly devote herself to someone else, and you have May Wells, one of the most overrated women I've ever met in my life. When I was young a fat woman was worth less than shit, especially if she refused to have children or be in a real marriage. 

And to top all this horror off, Bernard decided to ring me in the middle of dinner. 

I'm not going to say much about my barrister except that I've hired him to make sure I don't get screwed out of my fair share when my brother passes, and lucky for us my poor feeble minded brother adores him and so he thinks nothing of what may be obvious to other, more astute people about Bernard Golden: that he's a fraud, a blowhard. He is superficially philanthropic, throwing money at this rec center he's been lobbying the local government for while barely checking on it, preferring to make stump speeches on the matter and shake his fists at the people he claims aren't making it happen (and he, conveniently, is never among them). I don't even personally care for him, but he's damn good at what he does because she's such a charlatan, and so he's working for me to keep me safe from that conniving old cow. I will not be left behind. I've worked too hard in my life taking care of a poor blasted invalid to get screwed out of what is rightfully mine in place of a masculine whore who's using him for her own gratification that she's worthy of being anything other than some randy chap's semen rag.

If May Wells thinks that she's won my money from me she has another god damned thing coming. In a few short days Bernard Golden will be handing simple, deluded, childish old Roger Barrett a piece of paper that names me his main beneficiary and executor of his will with total power of attorney, and explaining it to him in a way that we've planned to sound perfectly tailored to his simplicity. You see, May always goes out to meet Cora for coffee on Thursdays in a location between where they each live, and she usually leaves around 1 pm, and doesn't return until approximately 4 pm. I have Bernard scheduled to come over at 3 pm this coming Thursday (being as it's urgent - they will be married tomorrow, and Roger could drop dead any time …. with any luck it will be after Thursday, and not before... unless I decide to poison him tonight to frame her), which gives us enough time to tell him enough so Roger can sign the paper and get on with it if that plan fails.

And by the way, it was very intentional when I called my brother "Roger" in front of Cora's fake tanned face. I did it just to see her terrified and horrified reaction. I took so much pleasure, in fact, in the very act of watching her recoil and almost feeling her heart racing across the table that I continue to play it over in my head hours later and even now have to fight off a laugh. That's how much joy it brings me; I will continue to play that evening my head with the utmost enthusiasm until my brother kicks the bucket and I don't need to see either of these women anymore. And even then I may pull it out for amusement when I'm feeling empty and bored of the humdrum life I have been forced into, especially now that I'm going to be saddled with a grandchild.

Now that all that is out of the way, let's take a listen to what these sad old women are saying, shall we? What exactly will they say when they think I'm not listening?

"You must be so excited," Cora squeals as I hear a jar being opened and open my eyes to see May standing in only her undergarments applying that nasty smelling Palmer's cocoa butter to her skin. She smells like a fucking chocolate bar. 

"I am. I'm so happy, Cora. He's just...he's exactly who I knew he always was, and exactly the boy I fell in love with way back then."

"I'm happy for you. You deserve love, Maisie. You were very lucky to have... you know, David, but I know that you never quite put that behind you."

Ah, David Gilmour. That's right. That nice, good looking young man that called me all the way back then to come and fetch my brother from the rock in front of his house. The one who May used to erase the stink of my brother and what he did to her. That David.

"You know...when I first came here I thought about David a lot, especially on Valentine's Day. I was kind of stuck in this loop of self-pity: worrying about his gorgeous wife and how I stacked up, agonising over his big happy family and how we never got to have any children of our own, and just thinking about all the things we missed out on. Beating myself up for ever leaving, like I always did: tossing and turning in my bed alone in tears longing for that love especially with him being only hours away for the first time in years. Then I realised I was falling in love with Syd, and I haven't really thought much about David since, maybe oddly enough."

Congratulations on doing the bare minimum.

"Good. You don't need your relationship now to be clouded by old memories and regrets."

"I'm sure David's long forgotten about me, anyway."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Cora whispers with a light-hearted lilt. "I mean, I don't want your mind and heart wandering, but I doubt he's forgotten you."

"Regardless," May says after a very pregnant pause, "I'm finally happy with someone else. I never thought it would really happen."

"You haven't been in a serious relationship since David, have you?"

"Not with a man," she admits, "there was never anyone I took seriously for anything but a good time...until now. Until Syd and I found one another again."

"So this is a very big deal for you, then. Getting married."

"Yeah. My first time, as you know. Never thought it would happen to me. I haven't been the marrying kind in 20 years."

And I bet everyone else didn't think so, either. Men don't want women who come with truckloads of their own money, high powered jobs, an attitude of not needing them and who dress like they're 25 even though they're nearing 60. Men don't want 60 year old women at all, in fact, unless they've gotten married and stuck with them...and a lot of times even then they don't want us. 

"Maybe it never did before now because you were always meant to marry one person," Cora suggests, and there's another pause where I open my eyes and see May staring into the mirror, considering.

"I know that's why," she answers softly, "because when we were young I promised Syd I'd marry him someday. And I think that part of the reason that I never got married before, even to David, is that I knew it was never meant to be with anyone else. And I just knew (as is understandable) that I wouldn't ever marry Syd, so I just didn't marry."

She can't be so phony as to be telling lies to her best friend. She has to know I'm awake and listening to them. Never thought it could happen with anyone else - what a joke. And how mean that is to David: she says she loves and adored him so much, but he apparently wasn't worth enough to be her husband.

"That's too sweet. Do you really think you were trying to keep that promise...even with...even after...you know."

"Yes," she says, "because even after what happened, even when I never wanted to see Syd again, I never stopped loving him. You know that."

What a gas. Never stopped loving my brother. After everything he put her through? I remember all of it. She thinks she was the only victim in the situation, but no, no she wasn't. As a matter of fact, it was I who dealt with all the fallout from what happened. It was I who showed up at David's house to fetch Roger and bring him straight to a state facility. It was I who suffered my mother's wrath after I made the decision she refused to make, and it was I whom Roger himself took his frustrations out on after he had been locked up, until he moved in with Mother, anyway. She's such a damned liar...never stopped loving my brother, but where was she all those years where he had no one but me...when not even our mother wanted anything to do with him?

"Stop it. You're going to make me cry, you nasty old cow."

Wow, that's the most factual thing anyone's said all evening.

May laughs: a lilting, obnoxious, overconfident laugh made hoarse by another inhale of that stinking plant they've smoked entirely too much of this evening. 

"I don't mean to skip over the bad things or romanticize, or you know...to pretend I've... forgotten. I haven't forgotten by any means, but it was never the same person. That person that did that … that thing to me wasn't my Syd."

Isn't that just a sign of how little May has really had to live with Roger's blasted sickness: that she thinks it's not him. Either she's being disingenuous, or she's stupid, and it could easily be either, but I doubt she's stupid. One doesn't go from being a poor, helpless heiress to an editor in chief and acclaimed New York Times journalist by being stupid, and so I have to believe that she's simply being fake. Not that it would surprise me: she's been horrifically phony since she arrived here...as phony as I have been. That's why I can see through it so clearly.

"Some people just become so ill. You know," Cora says with an edge to her voice, almost like she's being nasty, "you make it sound like you were just like my ex husband the way you describe your relationships with men since David."

"Stop that! Oh, don't say that. It's not the same. What? I swear it's not the same! I always told the men I was with up front that I wasn't looking for anything serious. I never lied to any of them, or led any of them on, or anything like what he did. Not at all. You take that back!"

Now it's Cora who laughs. I hate the sound of these ugly, self deceiving old women laughing it up, as if being promiscuous in one's advanced age is anything other than pitiful, scornful and horrid. I hate the way that they rejoice in their so-called 'liberation': as if the time honoured and godly traditions of wife and mother -hood are some sort of objectionable evils... deadly traps of some kind. Like somehow they are that much better than an old school marm like me, a woman who's given her life for others as women were asked to do by God himself. It's as if one can sacrifice all her life for others, keep herself modest, pure for her husband and unavailable for other men just as she was asked, keep her manners submissive and polite, and in response have other women who have the nerve to laugh off what God himself had intended stomp on her and celebrate their perversion and subversiveness.

"I'm just taking the piss out of you, you know that. I know you're nothing like him. It was surprising at first, though...when you told me that you'd had all kinds of sex with all these different men, but then I thought of the demon of lust that you were in our 20s, and it did not surprise me in the least to hear you'd racked up quite a body count for yourself. Good for you, girl, and even better for you for settling down after you've had your fun."

"Well, they do it, don't they? Men, I mean."

"And how were you the luckiest of all the straight and bisexual women in the world, finding a man when you're 19, and he waits for you until you're 60?"

"I'm 58. Shush."

"Oh, excuse me, Maisie," she says with another laugh.

These damn old hens are always laughing. What do they have to laugh about, anyway? Soon, I'll be the only one laughing.

"Hey, I may be old, but at least people won't assume I'm 75 just by hearing me talk," she says with a nasty edge to her voice. 

I know she's talking about me, that bitch.

"She might be awake, you know."

For once, Cora Harlow with some sense. Who'd have thought?

"I don't need to say anything else. I just needed to get that out."

And I don't know what the bloody hell else they said, because at that point I tuned them out and started fantasising. I have that mortar and pestle at home still: the one I used for those apple seeds on Alan when I'd had enough of playing the dutiful, submissive wife and wanted the money I earned from playing the stupid role for so long. A few little bites of the stuff, and he was on the floor from a heart attack, and no one was any the wiser. No one would ever have suspected his sweet little wife Rosemary could ever be capable of such a thing, and so it was chalked up to a freak accident and never investigated. And this time it would be so much better for me to watch than it was last time, as one's first kill is really more frightening rather than satisfying. Once one has done it previously, and knows one isn't to be caught, well, the second kill is… I'd imagine … wholly more exciting, especially when one's worst enemy is most likely going to be seen as the culprit.

Imagine it: 

Roger and May are all smiles, celebrating their pathetic, late in life, desperate marriage. I've slipped a tiny bit of the ground up paste into Roger's slice of cake while handing it to him and seemingly taking a photo of my slice with my camera phone. Since they're both so engulfed in one another, I've made sure neither has taken any notice of me fiddling with the cake, and Ian of course won't say anything. May takes a forkful of cake, and pushes it into Roger's mouth, and seconds later - poof - he's on the floor, writhing in agony, deprived of his oxygen. Moments later he's dead, and she's screaming. Putting on a real show. Inside one would have to know she's relieved that she didn't have to keep on living the charade any longer, but on the outside one would almost believe that she really did 'love' my stupid, demented, and hideous brother, as if anyone ever really could. As if there were anything to love about that man ever from the time he got into that awful group of young men who sold his soul all away until the last day he drew breath. 

And what would make it even more perfect is that since his death would happen so publicly, it would all leak that he'd married May that very morning, thus casting suspicion upon the silver haired mini Amazon that would now seem more like a money hungry, over eager black widow than anything else. They'd do an autopsy after the public demanded to know (and I, with tears in my eyes as I spoke to the media, demanded to know) what happened to our beloved local icon and devoted brother, respectively. And it would come out: death by poison. A lethal dose of arsenic, present in the apple seed paste I'd discretely added to the almond cake (I already ordered it just in case I decided to elect to use this plan) she'd fed him that very evening. And bam - mean, nasty May Wells is jailed for first degree murder were she sent back to the US for trial (which I'd fight for, as their prison sentences are far harsher there due to longer sentences for premeditated murder), and then not only do I have all of Roger's money, I then create space to make her own money mine, as well, and having to watch her suffer alone in maximum security prison is just a bonus!

I remember so well the adrenaline rush I felt when I watched Alan seize, his eyes bulging like they were full up with water from his skull, veins popping in them like they couldn't take anything more. He clutched at his chest one final time as he foamed at the mouth... desperate to breathe. I almost felt pity for him, but then I remembered the way he sounded when he was chewing his food, and how he never quite understood to rinse the dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. I remembered the way he had of yessing me to death when all I wanted was for him to listen to the minutiae of my day with interest and investiture the way that I always did, without fail, for him, and when I remembered all that I felt the full force of every orgasm I had ever been denied during the course of our mediocre marriage when I watched him suffer and writhe, begging as far as he could for any kind of relief or mercy.

Neither relief, nor mercy, came for Alan Breen, even in death. And after all the years of horrendous suffering foisted upon me by my mother without my consent, watching the same happen to Roger, and knowing his slut wife will lose her head over it and I'll walk away drowning in cash, will be simply spectacular.


	49. David - Cambridge, 1969 - David and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David desperately tries to keep his temper with Roger while trying to teach him the bass, and they discuss their love lives a bit.

_I had to go outside and take a break from trying to teach Roger the bass again. I never thought he could ever possibly get worse at it, but here we are. Whoever this version of Roger is, he has no rhythm, can't keep up and basically can't figure out where to place his fingers. This is an absolute disaster, and I can't for the life of me figure out what I'm going to tell the other two guys about it. We have a recording session tomorrow. Normally, Rick or I could pick up the slack for Roger on the bass (as we do from time to time), but on a 23 minute song it's going to be a lot of work. A LOT of work. And I still have my own part to work on._

_And he's just not acting like Roger, and it's throwing me off. He's too nice, too deferential, too much of a hanger on: it's not him. Roger never gets tongue tied with me. He never acts this submissive; it's almost disturbing to watch, but especially to be on the receiving end of it. If it were happening to Nick or Rick I might think it was funny, but it's happening to me, so it's not funny...it's just weird. If he were a girl I'd be convinced he had a crush on me. It's like how my friends' little sisters always used to always act when I was in high school: he giggles at all my jokes, he stares at me like an idiot when he thinks I don't notice, and sometimes he can barely come up with anything to say to me...even when we're talking about music. Hell, especially then. He's virtually useless when it comes to composition, too, and everything else he was good at musically before he fell off that horse._

_We have a three week tour around the US booked a few days after Maisie and Cora's Halloween party, and so I'm really hoping he can become at least mediocre again by then so we don't have to cancel it, but if I'm praying for a miracle I'm definitely praying that we get the old Roger back (even though this one is a whole lot more pleasant, and everyone has been enjoying having him around much more than we did - We even had a double date last week - me, Maisie, Cora and Roger - at Maisie's request) so we don't fuck all of this up. We're lucky the fans have been understanding about no more Syd fronting the band...I doubt they'd be so understanding about Roger having no idea how to play the bass or write a song._

_The girls are out here sitting around in a circle throwing out ideas for the party, or rather, three of them are, and the fourth is sitting with them but not really contributing to the conversation (I'd bet you don't need to guess who the fourth is). It's supposed to be a surprise for all the guys (this is something girls think we're going to like that we pretend to like for their sake, sorry), and so to humour them I won't listen. I'll have to go back inside shortly, it's just that I suppose I'd rather be out here with Maisie than in there with Roger. It's such a nice, cool autumn day to sit outside with the girl I'd really like to start to fall in love with (if I'm not already in love with her - who knows) and enjoy the crisp air and the crunching of leaves under our feet, but instead I'm stuck inside with this weird bloke who won't stop drooling when he looks at me._

_I throw my cigarette butt on the ground. Guess it's time to go back in there and do that all again. I'm going to give myself a migraine after this is over, I know it. I can only take so much frustration before it starts to hurt me from holding it all in. Happens to me sometimes with these guys. Not so much Nick, but Rick and Roger can both get to be real drags to work with. And now you add this whole layer of bullshit on, and it's got even worse. It's terrible, because this Roger is a blast to be around, at least in comparison with the one we knew before. If he knew his way around anything resembling a musical instrument that would really help us out about now. But no, no, Roger's just gonna forget how to do literally everything he contributes to the band, and we're all going to have to pick up the slack until Roger can come back to himself and go back to driving everyone crazy and making everyone's lives worse._

_He's sitting on the sofa in my studio, grasping at that bass with desperation, trying as hard as he possibly can to relearn everything that used to come so naturally to him that he didn't even think about it. Now he lifts his head and stares straight out the window, his eyes fixed on the girls outside for a second, and then he turns his face to me._

_"Do you like her? The plump one."_

_Ugh. Nice, Roger. Really._

_"Maisie?"_

_"Yeah. Her."_

_"What's it to you, mate?"_

_"I'm just asking."_

_"You've got one of your own, don't you?"_

_"It's not that. I just noticed, is all. Do you like her?"_

_I pause for a moment and consider saying yes, if only to finally admit it to someone out loud, but it isn't worth it. Even now when he's acting differently my inner voice is telling me not to trust Roger Waters. It's entirely possible that I'd admit it to him and that eventually when he comes back to himself (the doctors reassured us that they nearly always do, and I also am not beyond believing that the man will pretend to be out of his head for longer than he actually is just to milk it) he'll forget I ever said anything or that we even had this conversation, but I don't trust him as far as I can throw him._

_"Get back to your bass. There's time to look at the girls later, yeah?"_

_"Yeah, you're right," he says as he turns his attention back to it, strumming it a bit._

_This is hopeless. We've been at this for three days now, and he hasn't gotten any better. I want to rip my hair out. I'm trying so hard not to lose my temper with him, too, but it's not going anywhere. The whole fucking thing has been a waste of time as long as we've been doing it._

_My jaw is locking: that's how hard I'm gritting my teeth right now. My hands are balled up into fists, and my face is starting to heat up. My heart's racing and pumping blood all throughout me a kilometer a second and yet I wish I could have more compassion for him. After all, he can't help what happened to him, but he could have helped being a stubborn fuck. He didn't have to get on that horse alone, and he didn't have to ride it like he was trying to beat the shit out of it._

_"Why don't you try putting your fingers where they belong, hmm? I mean, don't just sit there, you know? Play something, Roger, damn it."_

_Sensing I'm about to lose my temper, he stands up and backs off a little, bass in hand still. Well, at least he remembers how to hold it._

_"I'm sorry, David. I wish I could remember. This is all so fucking hard; it doesn't seem natural to me at all. I can't even remember anything right after you've already told me about it."_

_"Yeah, I know. Listen, if you can't...if you don't know what you're doing by the time we're ready to start touring in November I guess we'll figure it out. Pre-record bass tracks and just put you out there holding it for show, or something. It won't be a big deal."_

_"I wouldn't want that for you guys. That's so much extra work…"_

_"Yeah, well, you can't really help it, can you?," I say as I turn my attention to the girls outside, hoping he doesn't catch me being a hypocrite. Instead, I see him waving at me from the corner of his eye, smiling._

_"You do like her," he says with that smile still on his face, "I knew you did. You know, I assumed you were her boyfriend when I saw you two together."_

_"Oh, yeah?"_

_"Yeah, I did," he says as he plucks at his bass. Finally, I can hear him producing something resembling a sound. Thank god. "You two look natural together. You look like it's all supposed to work out with you without you both really trying."_

_"Well, we're not together," I spit back at him as I pick up my black Stratocaster guitar and start to play a stretch of solo that's been giving me some particular trouble. "Not yet, anyway," I add with a shortness that I hope discouraged him from continuing to talk to me about this, but alas…_

_"Not yet, huh? So you DO like her."_

_"What, do you need me to say a definite yes? I've all but said it without saying it."_

_Sensing the coldness and hostility in my voice (and I am not trying, but I can't help it - he's really on my last nerve), he bristles but he moves a little closer to me: quite a bit too close for comfort._

_"I don't need you to say yes. I knew already, anyway. Don't fret so much about it, David. You'll get the girl." He turns to me and his steely sea green eyes bore a hole through mine, but they're not so steely now. Just another way Roger II is different from Roger I: his eyes are friendly and free of all the hatred and resentment that live in them far too often. "You could have any girl you wanted," he finishes._

_Eugh. It feels like he's trying to make a pass at me. Now, I know I joke about Roger being a poofter, but I never seriously considered that he's actually interested in men. I mean, we know that Syd was, and that Roger spent quite a bit of time with him, but it can't be. Now that I mention it, though, he is acting sort of the same with me now as he did with Syd then: the light is playing upon his green eyes so that they sparkle when he looks at me, and his fucked up teeth are bared in this goofy smile that I can't take at all seriously. If Roger likes men, that's all well and good, but that's not me at all, and I intend to never show any signs of interest lest he start to get ideas. I don't want to have to turn Roger down. How fucking awkward would that be? Besides, he and Cora have never seemed happier._

_"Thanks, mate," I say as I turn back to my guitar, avoiding his gaze. "I'm working on her."_

_"You don't have to work all that hard, though, do you?"_

_"What are you getting at, anyway?"_

_"Just that you're a very attractive man, you know? She'd be an idiot not to fall in love with you, but she's definitely in love with you already."_

_Now, there's an interesting bit of information. I don't say anything for a moment, preferring instead to keep on at practising my solo and pretend I didn't hear him, but he's sitting there waiting, and I'm bursting at the seams with this secret. I've told not one person how I feel about Maisie, and he's just offering the opportunity up on a silver platter. I'm not sure what to believe anymore; if I share this with him it's very possible that once he comes back into his head he could use it to hurt me somehow, but what if he doesn't remember? Could be that Roger just forgets everything that happened while he was out of himself, and he'll go on none the wiser by then._

_I take a few more moments to consider my next move, and then I get lost in the guitar before long. It's like he's not even there for awhile. Feels like I'm finally starting to get it, which is amazing because I've been stuck on this for weeks now._

_"You're a brilliant guitarist," Roger muses, "I mean, I've never heard anything quite like it, and I've been listening to a lot of music with guitars with Cora lately just to get a feel for everything. I wouldn't have to see you playing to know it's you."_

_Alright, now I know it's not really Roger in there. If it were, he would never say that, even if he were pretending to still have lost his memory. Roger would never compliment me, and while I do believe he could perform a lie like continuing to be without all his memories I don't believe for a second that he'd be able to play the part well enough to give me a compliment._

_"Thanks," I say as I place it carefully back in its stand, "I've been working on that for awhile. Wasn't hard to write, but it is hard to play."_

_"Can't tell it's hard listening to you play it. You make it sound so effortless. I wish I could play guitar like you."_

_"For now let's just focus on you playing bass like you. Maybe another time we can do that, but you've got your own thing that makes you good. You don't want to be like me."_

_"Sure I do, but I'll take being like me, I suppose, since that's the best I can do."_

_"I do like her, by the way," I say after letting the air hang between us for awhile so I can test the waters. "I like her very much, but she's had a real rough go of it up to now, so I'm taking my time. Don't want to rush anything."_

_"I don't blame you. She's real cute. Somehow I fell arse backwards into a relationship with a bloody gorgeous model, and I feel very lucky, but I think yours is real pretty, too. If I weren't with Cora…"_

_"Yeah, well, you are, and don't forget it because Cora's great."_

_"She is, isn't she?"_

_His eyes lit up when I mentioned Cora's name for the first time since they got together. He didn't roll his eyes or let out an exasperated sigh like he usually does...he didn't make up an excuse to change the subject to something else, he didn't let an awkward silence hang in the air: he seemed the way a man should when he hears his girlfriend's name. He seemed happy._

_Cora's my friend's little sister; I've known her since she was a little kid, and I don't like the way the old Roger treated her at all. Hopefully this new love and enthusiasm for her will stick with him when he wakes up...if he ever does._


	50. Maisie - Cambridge, April 2006 - The Varsity Hotel & Spa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora helps Maisie get ready for the wedding, and Maisie recounts her worries to Cora while Rosemary listens.

I barely slept a wink last night: that's how excited, nervous, and in shock I am. Cora stayed up with me for quite awhile, and we smoked well into the night while Judy and Rosemary slept, but even after she went to sleep I tossed and turned and checked the clock on my phone, feeling more and more bleak with every glance...worried I'd never get to sleep and that I'd be too tired to enjoy mine and Syd's special day. Eventually I did get to sleep, of course, and what I had was restful sleep, but now that I'm awake I'm a big jumble of emotions again.

Cora woke me up about an hour ago to get ready, and we bullshitted for awhile, but now I'm in the shower. I was talking to her about my worries about sex tonight, but then I heard Rosemary stirring, and that was the end of that conversation. She didn't actually wake up, then, unless she was awake and listening to us (I wouldn't put it past her), but it was enough to scare me off into the shower.

So here I am, showering and worrying myself way too much over how I'm going to tell Syd I really want to try to have sex with him tonight. As I scrub my scalp with my second shampoo (we put an olive and coconut oil mask in this morning, so I needed to shampoo twice) I start trying to think up ways to broach the subject without letting on how insecure I've been feeling that he hasn't shown any interest. I'm not sure how to approach it, but I'm so much more attracted to him sexually than I ever thought I'd be. Maybe he doesn't notice me that way, but I'm aware of his sensuality and how it makes me feel so fluttery all the time. Sometimes all he had to do is walk past me, and look at me a certain way, and I might as well be on the floor with my legs spread waiting for him to come and take me. I've been wondering all this time if he just didn't find me attractive that way, or if he's lost his drive, or what it is that's kept him from approaching me sexually nor giving me room to approach him, but I've been a little too shy to ask. Scared, even.

Why scared, though, I wonder as I slather some conditioner over my hair, right from the roots to the very ends (especially on the ends). If anything is going to make my curls look better and more defined it's definitely tons of conditioner. Could it be that I'm afraid because I haven't thought about sex with someone I love with any urgency over the past 20 years? I may have loved both of the women I dated, but not like this, and I didn't love any of the men. The closest I came to falling in love with a man again was Paul, and then he met Greg, and that was the end of that. Sex since David has just been something I did to feel good. It was fun: good old fashioned American fun, with minor very few strings attached. It was never attached to my heart, but now it is, and I think that's pretty scary. Don't you think?

Now we let the conditioner sit for two minutes. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to learn that you always let your conditioner sit for a few minutes, even when it's just a routine wash. Besides, it's the perfect time to get some last minute ruminating done. 

I think what's maybe a little less scary than that, but still scary, is that I haven't really been rejected in awhile. I've been rejected a number of times, believe me, but it never really bothers me. If Syd rejected me, especially on our wedding night, I'd be mortified. It would be a wound it might take my confidence awhile to bounce back from, but it wouldn't mean I love him any less. In fact, almost nothing could make me love Syd any less.

Now I'm rinsing my conditioner out, and washing my body down with my shea butter body wash, and wondering what it might be that Syd doesn't like about it. It might not even be that, so why does my mind rush there? Maybe Syd is just scared because it's been so long for him. Look at me being a self centered cow... assuming that we haven't had sex because there's something wrong with me when it could simply be that Syd is anxious about it and has been avoiding it. I haven't exactly done anything to initiate or try to make that easier on him, have I? Maybe he just needs a different approach than the men that I've been with before. After all, Syd is no ordinary man.

Now that I'm all dried off, Cora asked me to call her in before to let her put my products in. Women with straight or wavy hair are so lucky sometimes in that they can just wash and go if they want, and everything kind of holds together. Curly girls are not really so lucky: everything needs to be planned out. There's gotta be a routine, and products, or you've got a mess on your hands. And now that my curl is growing back in, it's time to learn how to tame it again.

"Cora!," I yell from inside the bathroom, clutching my towel around myself.

She arrives with my white bathrobe and a bag full of products.

"I'm here, Bride. Are you ready for the first part of your hair makeover?"

"First part?," I ask with curiosity. Usually I just throw my hair back in a ponytail or let it flow. I'm not one for complicated hairstyles like Cora, and never was.

"Yes, yes," she replies, handing me my robe and taking the towel from me as I slip it on, "after we get you dressed and made up it's time for styling, and I have the most perfect idea for your makeup and hair. I'm so excited."

She lathers a leave in conditioner on my hair and brushes it through, followed by a biotin serum she scrubs into my scalp, a scalp treatment and some curl cream. Next, she scrunches my hair up and turns me to face myself in the bathroom mirror that's surrounded by bulbs like her vanity back in her old room in Cambridge.

"I never thought I'd see those curls again," I murmur, thinking back on when I decided to straighten and chop my hair after breaking up with David in the 80s. I needed a change, and discovered that while the chore of having to straighten my hair took a bit longer than I'd like, that day to day straight hair was just easier. Then I came here, and Syd told me he missed them, and even though I've never liked them because I always thought straight hair was more beautiful, now I wear them with pride because my baby loves them, and so I want to learn to love them, too.

"I don't know why you'd ever get rid of them," she says, "women pay for hair like that. They literally pay for your hair, and yet you were just breaking and starving it trying to attain what they're trying to get rid of. Come on, princess, let's get you into that makeup chair. We have an hour and a half to go!"

"I know," I say pensively as I sit down in the chair Cora's set up in front of the mirror in the master bedroom where Rosemary lounges on the bed playing her sudoku again, "trust me. I'm so nervous. I'm killing myself with anxiety. I'm a real bundle of nerves this morning."

"Oh, dear, why?," Cora asks as she rifles through her golden trap case and starts to pull out different products to consider for my face.

"I want today and tonight to be perfect for him. Every minute, you know, absolutely perfect. From the moment we see one another until the moment we close our eyes tonight, I want it all to go exactly as it should, but I'm so afraid it won't. I'm afraid I'm gonna fuck it up or disappoint him somehow."

"My darling, from everything I've seen and everything you've told me, you'd have to intentionally try to fuck up to disappoint that man. So no offense meant, but you're truly worrying over nothing. You could take a shit on the ground and he at least wouldn't be even the least bit upset about it, so don't even start from there. What is it that's got you worried, my friend?"

"Well," I start, aware of Rosemary, completely uninvolved in helping her sister in law get ready for her wedding, and I'm not sure whether it's safe to talk about what I'm about to talk about, but fuck it. This isn't the kind of thing that would upset Syd, and I'm sure she's too stuck up herself to tell him about it anyway. "It's just the sex thing. We haven't had sex, and I think I'd really like to. I really feel very attracted to him. He makes me horny as hell sometimes...you have no idea. It's some of the rawest, most incredible sexual chemistry I've felt in years, but he just doesn't seem to reciprocate."

"I understand," Cora replies to me as she swipes and blends a light foundation (tinted b.b cream, she says...I don't need much) on my cheeks, "you're a very sexual person. You're a sexy woman. It must feel sort of odd to love someone that you don't have that with."

"Yeah, I mean sometimes it is, but everything else just really works. He's making me understand what it means to live simply again. These guys in this band, they really all prefer to live very quietly, you know? And I feel like part of me really lost that being away from here. But now I understand what that all means again, and so I do feel sad about it when I really focus on it, but I don't often."

"The Floyd circle does like to keep things very private, and quiet, and simple, yes," she hisses. It's off-putting.

"Yeah, I know. It's really … I mean, I'm truly grateful for it. I don't want to be a Syd breakdown story on VH1. I don't want creepy fans reading about what happened to me on the internet and forming opinions on it, and on me and the decisions I made in my 20s, pelting me with their stupid assumptions about me, and about Syd. And they've always protected me, all of them. Everyone that ever knew about it of any consequence kept it to themselves, and so no one knows who I am in this context. I don't want to lose that."

"Oh, I know. I'm coming at it from a different place. You don't need to explain it to me. Of course you wouldn't want anyone to know about what happened there. Anyhow…"

"Yeah, so...I'm not sure how to approach the issue. I don't know how to initiate with him."

"Just see where he takes things, and guide, don't push. Let him lead. Trust me, he will. Take a bath with him, or something."

"Good idea."

"Don't worry so much. No one loves anyone the way you two love one another, so don't let sex get in the way."

"I'd be happy to even use my hand, but he didn't always like me to touch him or fuck him or suck him off. He has always had a sex drive, but he couldn't always maintain when we were kids, so…"

"Maisie, do you think he's impotent?"

She looks up at me, our eyes meet in the mirror, and I watch her eyes light up.

She just made a major connection for me. 

"That could be it, yeah. He always had some trouble, he said once when he was getting sick like it didn't feel like any privates belonged on him."

"That's an interesting way of putting it, but he was sick."

"I never realized...it makes sense now. I can't really tell you exactly what it is, but trust me, it makes sense."

"Then definitely let him decide where you're going. It's all about him feeling comfortable enough to do it, so do everything you can to make him comfortable."

"I can do that."

"What eyeshadow do you want?"

She shows me a bunch of different palettes, and I settle on some neutrals. I don't think Syd would really like all that 'fuss', as he calls it. Then she brushes it on, and I smile weakly at her.

"I just can't believe I'm getting married," I whisper, and my whisper turns into an excited giggle. It's been years since I've giggled like that.

"Yes, you're getting married!!! You are."

"He's going to look so handsome, I bet. I hope he dresses up at least a little. He's very … unconcerned with what he wears."

"He'll dress up for you. He's a gentleman."

"I'm a very lucky woman," I reiterate to myself for the fifth time since I woke up, except this time out loud.

"Me too, yes."

When Cora finishes my makeup, she turns my face to the mirror, and I take a good long look at it, taking in every fine detail of what she did.

"I love it. It's beautiful."

"I thought red lipstick would do nicely with your hair and the dress."

"Thank you, Cora."

"It's your wedding. Of course I want to do you up. Remember how you helped me when I got married? Now it's your turn."

Now I stand up and walk over to the closet to get my dress, and I drop my robe to the floor. I kind of don't care that Rosemary is sitting here while I'm exposing myself. Serves her right, in a way. With my body completely ready for the dress I grab my panties and my bra and put them on, and then take the dress from its hanger and slide it up over my hips and around my waist until it's up over my chest and Cora's zipping it up.

"Okay," I say as I stand confident in my very first wedding dress, "I see we have a half hour left... let's get my hair done, and then I can grab everything. Rosemary?"

She perks up at the mention of her name, puts down her book and pencil, and looks at me. She looks like a blind little rat with her glasses off, and her face looks so judgmental, and she seems so put upon.

"Yes?"

"Would you mind gathering my things together so we can just get out of here and check out once I'm dressed?"

"Yes, fine," she replies with this tired, impatient voice that really throws me off, but I'm not sure why. Maybe just because you'd think a sister would be excited to see her brother get married, but she really doesn't seem to be. She seems like it's all a big inconvenience. Maybe it's the way I've been acting. Maybe I haven't been inviting enough. Maybe I haven't been kind enough.

"Thanks," I say as Cora gives me a knowing look and Rosemary walks away into the bathroom.

"What a ray of sunshine on your wedding day. Jeez."

"Yeah, well," I say without completing my sentence because I don't know what to say. Cora sprays my hair after she pulls it back into a high ponytail and scrunches my curls.

"You look beautiful. Stand up," she says as she fluffs my hair one more time and pulls my dress out to feel the material of the skirt. "You're a perfect bride. Oh, I'm going to cry. Can I take your picture to show Judy? I don't want to wake her up."

"I'm so, so nervous."

"Well, getting married is a bit scary, but hopefully it ends up being worth it. And it's going to be worth it for you, I promise."

"I know. I just love him so, so much. So much it eats me alive, but in a good way."

"I know what you mean. I'm hoping Judy proposes soon, but if she doesn't, I'm going to. She's the one. Just like Syd is the one."

I don't think that's true. I think I have more than one 'ones'. I think David was the one, too, but that might not be the best thing to admit on my wedding day.

"He is. He is the one. I think I'm ready when Rose comes back. I think I'm ready to go."

"I'm walking you to your car. Somebody's gotta give you away, and even though I can't walk you down the aisle, taking you to your car is just as good in my mind."

Rosemary shuffles back into the room dragging my bag behind her... literally dragging it like it's just a sack of potatoes that's burdening her to have to carry. She looks so incredibly displeased, like this is the last thing she wants to do today, but I'm sure when we get to the courthouse she's going to put on such a pleasant face for Syd and act like the supportive sister. I am beginning to wonder how much of what I thought Rosemary to be when we first met again when I came back, a kindly, caring little sister, is just a mask that she wears. I wonder who or what the real Rosemary is.

"Are we ready?," she asks.

"Yes, we're ready," I say, giving Cora another smile as she picks my bag up from Rosemary and leads me out, leaving her behind for a second.

It all gets very real from here.


	51. Syd - Cambridge, 1969 - David and Maisie's House/Rosemary's Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Syd battles his demons and waits for Maisie to come out until Rosemary arrives to take him away, but to where?

_I'm here, you know._

_I'm here!!!_

_I'm here, I'm out here. Can't you see me? Can't you tell? I'm out here, please come out._

_I don't think I've ever felt so terrible and wonky and broken. I don't think that anything so perfectly smooth purple could become so …so...horrid and melted and poisonous. How could this ever happen to me? How could I be sitting out on my own? Everything has gone to hell in a giant meat paddywagon and turned to dust. Dried up and turned to dust. It's all gone now. The boys, the glitter and the magick and the fools and jesters and dancing and folly and play, the lady. It's all done. It's all over._

_Why won't she come out anyway? Why not? I wasn't … I didn't mean it. It wasn't such a tragedy when I heard about it the first time it all flowed like wine when I thought about it then didn't it because it had to. I had to not have thought it was all that bad. She was in danger. It was all going wrong. It all broke. It all hangs over me like a cloud all the time. Mists all around my brain and my eyes and in my whole face and body, this fog. It's all over me. Dusty, gray...lonely fog._

_It's all over, all over._

_I don't know how long I've been here or how I got here anymore. I come sometimes, but not others. I don't always come here to wait but I don't know how I ever get here. I know I'm here, but I've been... somewhere else. I've been flying away, broken and rotten and terrible, until I felt myself in a toilet and then Roger comes to get me, my dear Roger, my lovely boy. My sweet darling horse boy, how I love him. He comes for me, my sweet boy, and he takes me home and we bathe and we love together again, but...but I can't stop coming back._

_It's all swirling around now, all of it...all the broken pots and all the broken minds and all the brokenness and stink and rubbish piled on top of rubbish. All the chemicals in the cupboard...all the... she's broken from me. We're shattered. I can't feel her breathe anymore._

_I think that the bull sees me now. I think he knows I'm here, I see his stupid ugly face staring at me. I feel the icy blades of his eyes, I'm not stupid. I'm not an invalid. I'm not, you best understand. I know what exactly is going on. He's there, keeping her from me. Do you think she ever wants to come out?_

_The Shadow: No, you sallow little dolt, she never wants to come out to you. Drooling reject, she never thinks of you at all. You're a waste of her time and space. You're nothing but an oozing blob of space garbage._

_You stop saying those sorts of things to me! You stop yourself right now. She does! She does think of me, but the more time goes by the more starved I become of her connection. It's as if our minds were tied and now I'm off in space on my own without our silvery moonbeam tether._

_I'm all alone out here, Maisie, and it's getting cold. It's getting so cold out here. It's freezing me and I wish you'd come out to hug me. I wish you'd not leave me alone out here while he stares at me with his angry bull eyes and his snorting bull face. I wish you'd come out, I'm scared. I'm scared and alone and Roger never stays with me. He just leaves me alone with those evil people, but he won't take me home. Doesn't he love me at all?_

_The Shadow: No, no one loves you. No one loves you, Siddy, no one. Not a soul. You are a burden to everyone who has ever been driven to love you through your love bombing and manipulation. No one truly loves you, ROGER. How does it feel to be the less famous Roger? How does it feel to be the one who will never get to matter? Yes, Roger?_

_You stop that! Stop that, please, it's killing me. You're killing me, you see? I am dying I've had no water in...in about perhaps five days? And I'm hungry, so hungry and alone and I'm dying and she doesn't come. And Roger...I am not Roger. I am NOT Roger, do you understand? I don't want to be Syd, and I don't want to be Roger._

_The Shadow: Syd is a lie. Roger is the truth you refuse to see._

_I won't listen to you anymore, so you best let me on my way. You'd ought to leave now, I think. Go away. I don't hear you anymore, I don't hear you._

_The Shadow: Goodbye for now. I'll return next time you find your way here to wait like a pathetic little dog. I'll be floating around next time she cowers in fear on the floor, terrified and driven to hysteria over your slavish devotion after abusing her and fucking her up, you little festering wound._

_Please come out. Come out so I know he's not right. I wish you'd just look out the window, please, it's only a dream. I wouldn't hurt you again. Please come out._

_There's a car pulling up. A car pulling up, why? Has someone come? Roger only ever walks, why would he bring a car now?_

_It's...it's my little sister._

_Estella: She's always sort of put me off. I know she's your sister, love, but I don't like her at all. Gives me awful feelings, that one._

_Quiet now, Estella. That's my little sister. She's my little sister, and you're to leave her alone._

_"Let's go now, Roger. You've got to get off of this rock and climb into my car, and you've got to let me take you somewhere. You're not right, and you can't be sitting outside this poor girl's house. She's still recovering from the last time you hurt her. Get in the car this instant; I won't hear a word of it."_

_"But...Rosie, Rosie, she will come out for me if I wait-"_

_"You are not waiting here anymore. Get in my car now. Right now. I won't have you out on the street causing a scene and making the neighbours nervous."_

_"I'm not making people nervous, I'm only waiting. Please let me stay, Rosie, I know she'll come out."_

_"In the car! In, you go. What must people think, Roger? Honestly. What must they think, seeing you sit there for hours like that? I'm surprised that David Gilmour hadn't made meat out of you what with all the terror you're putting his girlfriend through."_

_"She's not his girlfriend, Rosie! He took her from me! He took her away, don't you dare say she's his girlfriend. Don't you ever say that again!"_

_"Face the facts, Roger. Face the facts, she's gone. You're never to contact her or come here, you're not to do that ever again. I forbid it. You stay away or you'll be arrested."_

_She's driving me away. I don't know where we're going. I don't know how this car is even moving, I don't think she ever started it, but she's driving. I don't think it's ever started before, in fact. It's all... it's all….so...so fast. We are going so fast. Why is Rosie so cross with me?_

_Estella: Because she's rotten, dear. She's very cold and rotten, and she only thinks of what others think about her. Her family aren't anything but extensions of her. Loving them means nothing to her, because she's always placed her public image above any real intimacy with other human beings._

_"I don't want to stay away, Rosie. Take me home to mum, Rosemary Barrett. Now. Take me back to mother now!"_

_"Mum told me I had the final say on what to do with you because she's too tired from the wicked head ailment she's had since yesterday and can't bear to make decisions that stress her. So if you can't promise to stay away I am going to have to make decisions you may not like, but it's for your own good, and it's for that girl's good, and that David Gilmour, who has been quite the honourable one, by the way, for not beating you to a pulp."_

_"Take me back to her! Take me back to that rock or I'll open up this car door and let myself out!"_

_I'm beating her car with my fists and throwing my head around. I'm screaming. I hope she's terrified, I do._

_"If you can't calm down right now I am taking you somewhere where they can make you right, Roger. You're not right. Your head is all scrambled. I don't know what's wrong with you, no one does. You ought to be somewhere else."_

_I'm screaming now even more. It's making my ears bleed, how loud I am. I'm thrown away, all my dignity means nothing._

_"Do not take me anywhere but back to my rock! I'm staying. I'm staying until she'll see me. I can't live without her! I can't do it for one more second. Can't you see that I am lonely and broken now that she's gone?"_

_"You were lonely and broken before she left. You're just far worse off now, and I can't let you live on your own, but I won't have you around making mum sick. You know she's sick over you. Absolutely sick, so sick she can't even bear the thought of dealing with you. You can't stay with us, and you obviously cannot be free to roam around and torment people. You're going to a facility, and that's the end of it. You're going away for awhile so that when you come home your life can move on, you can start fresh from ...this mess that you are, whatever it is you've done to yourself. You can start fresh and put all this behind you, go back to life as Roger Barrett and get used to the fact that this woman will never speak to you again. You can finally get yourself clean and be free of all this filth you've allowed to grow on you. You smell like a mix of rotten onions, whatever meat gets left in the dumpsters and like you've gone without wiping your arse. You're disgusting."_

_I can't believe my little sister would stab me with these words. I adore my little darling Rosemary with her fiery red hair. I love her cute little face and the way I used to make her laugh. I wonder what's come over her. Why would she do this to me?_

_"I... I hate the water. The water burns me, Rosie. The water makes bugs bite me, it pains and burns my skin. I can't bear to bathe, I just can't!"_

_"What are you talking about, you loony? What is wrong with you? Why can't you just be normal? Why can't you just ...there are no bugs in the water. You have no bugs in your water, and that is all in your head. See, this is exactly why you're going to be dropped off today. I've packed your things, you know. I've already packed your things that you left at mum's and we are going to drop you off with people that can do something for you, because our poor mother can't bear to."_

_"Please, Rosie, don't leave me there. They...they kill people in there. They cut people's heads open, I swear it. If you drop me off they'll saw my head open, and you'll be to blame for it."_

_"All they will do is give you medication and make you normal. You're going there, and that's final."_

_We're not talking anymore. We're not talking anymore._

_Now she's stopping, and the building is so very awful. It's an absolute hell fortress. It's a devil's castle. I don't like this place. They're going to hurt me._

_Estella: They won't hurt you, dear. They'll help you. Don't you worry._

_Now she's dragging me on by my ear, but then she pulls her hand away and grabs me by the end instead, but I wish she wouldn't squeeze it so hard._

_"This is my brother, Roger Barrett," I hear her saying to the pretty lady at the desk._

_Now I can't hear her anymore, she's whispering about me but not letting me say anything or even know anything._

_Why are there men coming to take me away now? Time is rushing past me like a river. I am swept out to the river with nothing to save me. They're wrapping me up. I can't move. I wasn't doing anything wrong. I wasn't being unreasonable. Why are they dragging me away?_

_"ROSIE!! ROSIE!!! They're taking me away. Please don't let them take me away, Rosie, please? I don't want to be here; this place is horrid, please!"_

_"Goodbye, Roger! They'll alert me as soon as you're ready to come out and I'll come fetch you."_

_They're dragging me away, and I'm screaming and trying to get away from them. If I could get my hands on them, I would. I'd be choking the lights out of them if I were able, but I can't. I'm throwing myself around like a cat in a rage._

_Now I have a needle in the side of my neck._

_I'm getting sleepy now._


	52. David - Sussex, England, April 2006 - David And Kim's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David manages to throw together a party for Kim, and a conversation about the reality of things emerges between him and his former bandmates (minus someone).

I managed to throw together something for Kim at the last minute that's made her happy, so thank goodness for small miracles (also known as 'throw all the responsibility onto a party planner and forget it'). All her friends and family were invited, the house was professionally cleaned and decorated and the whole affair was catered, and all I had to do was make a phone call. One phone call. And thank god, because I don't know if I could've handled much else.

I'm so fucking depressed. It feels like I'm drowning. I know exactly where she is right now, but I can't see her. Imagine if I showed up at Syd's house. What do you think would happen? Do you think Syd would have a meltdown of some kind? Do you think she'd be upset if she saw me there: wonder why I waited until I knew she was happy to barge in on her and shake things up in her life? Would she slam the door in my face? Would she cry? Or would she be happy to see me? Would she throw her arms around me and shriek with joy at the sight of me again after all these years? 

Has she thought of me at all since she's been here, or even at all in 20 years? Has she tried to find me just like I've been trying to find her? I doubt it. It seemed so easy for her to leave when she did. It seemed like once she was done crying, and ready to walk out the door, that despite my pleading and bargaining she had not a shred of doubt in her mind that it was time to go. She swore she'd always love me, and I returned the promise, but did she keep it just like I did?

I can't sleep anymore. For a few years I managed somehow to find a sleep routine that worked for me, and that let me sleep undisturbed all night long, or at least for a good four hour stretch. That was working. I'd had it down to a science by now. I meditate at night before sleep, just as I always have, and then I have a mantra I repeated to myself over and over again until I fell into sleep:

You are at peace with your life now.

I'd repeat that to myself again and again until I fell asleep, and it worked for years…

But not anymore.

Not since I found out she was here. 

Ever since then sleep is welcome when it comes, but never expected. It's your child when they've gone off to university, and you would love for them to visit more often, but secretly you're coming to realise that the more time goes by the less they're going to pop by and visit. I sleep a bit each night, but nowhere near eight hours. Sometimes I get two, on a good night perhaps I'll even catch four hours, but they're fitful and wrought with dread and self-pity.

I know I should be in the living room with Kim celebrating her birthday, but I'm no good company at the moment, and so I excused myself to escape to my studio for a while. It always helps to bang out a solo or two when I'm feeling particularly beside myself. And I suppose I would have eventually gotten better on my own, but my bandmates have seen fit to knock at the door to be let in. I knew I wasn't wrong for inviting them.

"You alright in there, Dave?"

There's Rick, and I hear Nick behind him. 

Thank god for the two of them.

(No, I did not invite Roger, and I don't, usually.)

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Come on in," I say to them, and Nick opens the door.

"Somehow I got Amelia to agree to stay out there. She hates your wife, mate, I'm sorry."

Amelia has never liked Kim, not for as long as we've been together before we dissolved the band officially. I remember the first day they met, when Kim turned to me when we got home and said, "That Amelia Mason was rather abrupt, wasn't she?"

"I know she doesn't. It's a shame. They should get along. They've got quite a few things in common."

"Eh," Rick interjects as he sits down at the keyboard I've got standing in the corner specifically for when he visits, "you know why she doesn't like her. You both do."

"Well, I could go down a list of reasons," Nick says with an iciness to his voice, like he's heard all the reasons every time we've gotten together both before and after, and that he knows them by heart even though he'd rather not (and knowing Amelia, this is likely the case).

"You don't need to," Rick replies, "because it's all a bunch of excuses. Kimberly is a fine woman, a wonderful mother and a great wife. There's no reason to dislike her, outside of jealousy, except for the fact that she isn't…"

"Richard…"

Nick hisses at Rick, warning him to stay away from the topic, but avoiding the topic in conversation isn't going to make me think about it any less.

"No, Rick, go ahead."

"Fine," he says as he pushes up his sleeves and lets his fingers wander over the keys, "she's not Maisie. That's it. Amelia doesn't like Kimberly because she had the nerve to be married to you and not be Maisie. That's all it is."

"Well, you said it, not me," I say as I nod at the drums in the back of the room that I keep for Nick, signaling for him to take a seat. 

The afternoon sunlight spills through the window and over the white of the walls, and the grey of the carpet on the floor. It highlights just how bare I've let this room stay. If I were on my own I'd have no idea how to decorate my house. It makes me think of what Maisie would joke about 'wanting to do with this room' were she here, and so I put my guitar down and grab three beers from the fridge I keep in here. One for each of us, though I think for a second of grabbing an extra for myself to stave off the darkness.

"That's the long and short of it, yes," Nick agrees as he grabs two beers from me, brings one to Rick and sits down at the drumset with his own. "Every reason she gives all comes down to 'she isn't Maisie', and I hate to report it to you, but she does trash Kim to Maisie at any given opportunity."

That's right...Maisie and Nick still talk. All these years I've known that, and yet I've never asked him to talk to her for me. What must she think, knowing that? She must think I've forgotten all about her.

"Does she?"

"Yeah. I mean, look, it's not like she comes to stay with us, or we go to stay with her, often, and it's not like we talk all that often, but when we do talk yes...Amelia loves to tear Kim apart to Maisie like she's competing for it."

"How does she...what does she say?"

"Mostly just nods. She doesn't seem to want to talk about it."

"It? What doesn't she want to talk about?"

"You, David. She doesn't want to talk about you."

That was Rick, who's throwing his beer back with a purpose and getting more surly every second just like he always did when he drank while he's starting to reprise his stellar performance of Pow R Toc H. 

"Well, he's right, but that's not what I meant, really. She doesn't want to talk about Kim at all, but she'll humour us if we talk about you."

"Has she... asked about me?"

"Every time we talk."

My heart skips a beat now. You know, in all these years Nick never mentioned that Maisie asks for me until now.

"You fucking prat," I spit at him, "you would've done well to tell me that before today, you know?"

"Yeah, Nick, you tosser. What were you thinking, anyway?"

Rick has this way since Jane passed of throwing in a sarcastic comment or an unkind word if only to get a rise out of other people, even if he has no real investment in what's being said. He used to be very quiet, but after what he saw that night he's never been the same. I suspect that he's never quite forgiven us for forgetting to put that candle out before we went to bed even though he's never said as much. 

"Look, it was never my business. I was never going to get in the middle of it. If either of you had asked me to speak to the other one, I would have said no and never mentioned it. I adore you both, but I don't want to be in the middle of all that."

"But I wish I had known...I mean, why are you telling me this now of all times?"

"You know why," Nick says as he picks up some of the drumsticks I've got lying around.

"It's cos she's back, innit? Maisie's back. Nick told me last week. She's back in Cambridge, staying with Syd. That's why you're in here during your wife's birthday party, sitting all on your own and feeling sorry for yourself."

Rick takes a last swig of beer and throws the bottle down on the floor. He brushes some silver hair out of his face and goes back to his playing, and Nick and I are left to stare at one another, confused by the sudden strength of Rick's temper.

"What's gotten into you, then?," I ask him. He looks up at me, those serious blue eyes boring a hole through the deepest, most sensitive parts of me. 

"Well, honestly? I've about had it with your sulking, David."

Nick's eyes go wide again like they did before when Rick blurted the comment out about Amelia, except this time the look in his eyes is even more urgent. 

"Richard!"

"Let him speak," I say, waving my hand at Nick to signal that I'm not bothered.

"Are you sure? There's no reason to...Rick, really. This isn't the time or the place."

"It's fine. I want to hear what he has to say."

Rick stands up and walks toward the fridge, availing himself of another one of my beers, and then he takes a few steps towards me. I notice that his eyes are as serious as they always were, but the years have given them a dangerous edge, a fierceness that only comes with time. Time, loss, bitterness, and resentment.

"Would you swallow all your fucking bullshit pride and leave your bloody wife already? You don't love her, you've never loved her, you're stringing her along while you search for scraps of any kind of attention from the woman everyone in this room and so many people outside of it know you're supposed to be with, and you don't even care to change anything. You'd rather just live with the pain and keep it from your family to avoid inconveniencing yourself, and I don't agree with that one bit."

I think this is the most tense moment the three of us have had since we were starting to realise that Pink Floyd was, as Roger so bitingly put it, a "spent force". The air hangs heavy between us as Nick looks from me to Rick, and from Rick to me, probably checking if either of us is going to hit the other, and I have to confess that I would love to hit Rick right now. I'd love to, but I won't.

"That's what you really think, hm?"

"Yes," he replies, his posture portraying a fearlessness I never knew in him before. 

"Well. I'm glad to know, finally. For once, in all these years, you condescend to give your actual opinion of me, and it is that one. And I would love to be angry at you-" I raise a bottle to him, and then take a long, desperate sip "but I am simply in too much agreement."

Rick explodes in an obnoxious, knowing laughter: the sort of laughter you'd produce if you heard someone say something preposterous. He raises his second beer at me in return, shakes his head, and after swallowing the unnecessarily large swig he took takes a moment to catch his breath. Nick looks on, his eyebrows raised with worry and suspicion, his mouth hanging slightly agape.

"You say I'm right, but you're never going to actually leave Kim, David. You aren't ready to face facts and sacrifice your very comfortable life, and so you knowing that I'm right means nothing. It's even more pathetic to sit around and lead someone on, isn't it, David? It's easier to sit by and live a lie of convenience while causing both yourself and your spouse stress than it would be to just cut it off at the root, set her free, and after Syd kicks it go back after the one you actually love. Let Kim find the love she deserves, for fuck's sake, David!."

"I am not staying with my wife for the convenience," I say as I take a step toward his keyboard, my hands trembling as I ball them into fists. My temples are throbbing, and I'm bound to get a headache later if I don't release my anger first, but I'll take the headache. (I usually would rather take the headache.) I didn't want to get angry at him, but if we don't stop right this second I can't guarantee that anyone will get out of it unscathed. I can't ruin Kim's party. Someone worked very hard on this, and she certainly deserves it.

"Oh, you aren't?," he asks me as he takes another swig and then smiles at me with wicked intention.

"No, as a matter of fact I'm not. I love Kim very much, and I'm happy. I'm happily married; I have no complaints about my marriage at all."

"Of course you don't. Because it's not your marriage itself that's the problem, Dave."

"What are you talking about?"

My body is tensing up so fast I may become paralyzed or turn to stone, and my heart is pounding like I'm about to put my fist through it. I am trying very hard right now not to put my fist through something, that's for certain. The more he talks the less I'm feeling in control of myself.

"You have never been able to be faithful. You've been in love with someone else throughout your entire marriage, and it's an honest to god shame for your beautiful wife. We're at her birthday party, and instead of being out there with her you're in here with us sulking over your old girlfriend. And I feel as if we've had this talk multiple times now. We've wasted countless potential jam sessions on you whining about missing her. So why the hell don't you just go get her then?"

"It's not that simple, damn it! I've got a life here. I've got a wife and children, I've got a routine. Things work for me. I don't know if Maisie would even see me, forget getting back together. I can't risk everything for one night, I just can't."

"I say do it. Syd's funeral. Do it. Don't let anything stop you. If there's anything I've learned...since...since Jane...it's that you will regret every shot you didn't take one day. You may never get another chance, David. If you don't speak to Maisie at that funeral I will never forgive you."

"But what if…"

"I don't want to hear it, do you understand? If I have to find a way to make it happen on my own I will, but you're taking the chance if only so I don't have to waste anymore time on listening to you whine about this. Now let's play: I'm tired of talking about our relationship problems. That isn't why I came here."

"Plus - I think both Kim and Amelia are less likely to tear us apart later for forcing them to spend time together if they hear music coming from in here," Nick adds, rolling his eyes.

And with that it's like the affair is over, the conversation is finished, but I don't know if I can listen to Rick. I don't think I have it in me, or do I? What exactly am I capable of, anyway? I've very rarely if ever tried to be anything more than I've ever been. Even with all my success I don't think I've stretched myself all that much, or done anything I wasn't already comfortable with. To actually go behind my wife's back to talk to my ex girlfriend, and see where that eventually takes us... that's quite a stretch for me. I've never been the unfaithful kind, at least not in the traditional sense. I suppose Rick is right, though: I've never been faithful, not really, and he would know better than anyone because he has never been faithful to either of the two women that came after Jane in the exact same way. Except unlike me, Rick has admitted this to himself and now lives on his own. Sometimes I wonder if he ever eagerly awaits death, but I doubt it.


	53. Cora - Cambridge, 1969 - Roger's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora enjoys her "new" boyfriend.
> 
> NSFW!!!

_I've just gotten Roger some soup, the poor dear. He's so badly off. My poor, poor baby._

_Now I'm watching him there eating it with his long, spindly fingers like spider's legs. He brings the spoon to his beautiful, pouting lips and eating it. He smiles after he tastes it, isn't that simply wonderful? I can't remember the last time Roger smiled like this. I can't remember the last time he ate my cooking and smiled when he tasted it...I don't think it's ever happened before. I must have done a bang up job on this soup or something for him to look so pleased._

_Do you remember the last time Roger was pleased? Nor do I. He has always been so sour and cold; I've never seen him this content and comfortable. It's like I'm falling in love all over again here in his room tonight, and it's just like it was then, too. He was so romantic in the first few months, and so flirtatious and charming, but he's become so cold and distant and sometimes nearly unbearable the longer we've been together. It was starting to feel as if it would never change, but then he fell off that horse, and ever since that day it's like I have my old Roger back._

_"This is real good, Cora," he says with a faint smile as he slurps more down like a greedy little boy. "I like this a whole lot. Is this chicken and rice?"_

_"Yes, silly, you can see that it is. I've put some celery and carrots in there, too, and at Maisie's suggestion I put some salt and herbs in it. I was just going to let it go without."_

_"I'd love it even if you put no salt in it, though. How lucky I am to have a beautiful girlfriend who cooks for me."_

_"What have you done with my Roger, and where are you hiding him, you imposter?"_

_"I think I am Roger, you know? That's what everybody keeps calling me, at least, and he sure seems like one lucky chap, I'll tell you. Good friends, a beautiful girlfriend who cooks for me and drives me around, and a famous band. I couldn't ask for anything more."_

_"My darling," I whisper as I wrap my arms around his thin, bony waist and ribs, "I'm the one who's lucky," and right now I really do feel lucky, but I'm wondering when the other shoe is going to drop? There's no way my Roger could stay this way, is there?_

_"Cora, I feel so very safe with you. I'm blessed, I am. Since I've woken up I have started to realise that whoever was lucky enough to have been given this life should be very grateful."_

_"Now, Roger," I say as I move my hand to his hair and swirl my fingers around in all of it, and how long he's been letting it get (just like David, Roger has to have his hair long, "you have earned it all. Really, you have. You're so talented, and so smart...why you've earned this life. It wasn't given to you."_

_"I'm afraid," he says with a smirk, "that there's no way that I believe that a man like me earned the company of a woman like you, Cora Harlow."_

_"You stop," I giggle, but I feel so light and feathery, he mustn't stop. If he stops, I may just cry. If this is who he wants to be right now, well, who am I to discourage it? This is who I've known he could be all along._

_"I couldn't if someone paid me," he whispers as he pushes my hair out of my face and brings his lips to mine. My body quivers as he kisses me, and the hairs on my arms stand up, but only for a moment before I realise that as he's trying to tease me well...all I want is to sit like this. I was hoping he wouldn't try to bring it in this direction, that he'd just lie with me in bed, but here he goes._

_He moves his hands into my hair and leans his head against mine, and I smile as he angles his face to brush his lips against mine again. I wrap my arms around his neck and draw him closer into me, but when he starts to reach behind me to get at my brassiere hooks I swat his hands away._

_"Now, now, you naughty boy. That's not nice. Here I was thinking we were just having a nice moment, and you're trying to unwrap me."_

_"Oh, goodness," he says with a coy smile as his cheeks redden, "what am I doing? You must think so little of me. I got carried away, but it won't happen again."_

_And then - and it's just the craziest thing - he stops. He picks up his soup bowl and settles into my arms, and makes certain not to get carried away again. At times I find myself wishing he would, but it's quickly replaced as if the tires only get to be halfway full of air before the air gets let out of them somehow. But what matters is that this time when I asked him to please slow down...why, he truly did! He stopped._

_He's never stopped before._

_In all this time that we've been together I've probably asked him to stop well, more than a handful of times. I usually put up at least a bit of a fight beforehand, if only because I suppose I don't feel all that driven towards sex. In fact, I don't think I ever have. It's sort of strange, having relations with a man, I've noticed. They get all sweaty and they're rough and scratchy sometimes. They smell awful unless they've just showered, and they are often so poorly maintained. And something about their johnsons, well... it's...not appealing. They’re rather ugly, if I’m being honest. Like big dumb things just dangling there expectantly. I do what I have to do, of course, especially with a partner as sexual as Roger, but….often, I feel reluctant. And he's never stopped before today._

_"I don't think little of you. In fact, I think you're wonderful, so don't let it weigh on you dear. In fact, I think more of you for apologising and not trying again."_

_"Have I not always?"_

_I pause, because I don't want to lie to him, but I also don't want to risk ruining this good mood I've caught him in. As time passes I look over at him, and I squeeze his hand. He smiles at me...a smile that is so genuine and bright that I can't help but do anything at all in my power to preserve it. I lean over and kiss his cheek, and then lean my head on his shoulder._

_"Oh, it doesn't matter now. Don't trouble yourself over it. What matters is that we're here together, and that you made it off that horse alive."_

_"This soup is just delicious. I can't wait for you to make it again."_

_"It's just chicken and rice soup, you know. It's nothing special."_

_"What's special is that you made it."_

_I look into his glassy green eyes and I'm so overcome with joy that I squeeze his body close to mine so I can feel our hearts beating as one. He wraps an arm around me, and it's so wonderful to have a boyfriend who's taller than me! I thought I'd never find him, but here he is right in front of me: this deep, complicated, and fascinating man. He's right in front of me, and his eyes are roaming over my face and he's breathing me in, and I realise why I stay now. It's these moments: these tender, sweet moments between us that lately are becoming (much to my utter excitement and happiness) very common. It's the times where he forgets how much he hates to trust people and be vulnerable, and he lets himself be weak with me. When he's romantic like this. How I've missed it lately that it's been gone._

_"Oh, how I love you, Roger Waters! How I love every beautiful inch of you."_

_"Do you really?"_

_"Oh, yes, I love you so truly. I love you to the moon and back."_

_We kiss once again: a long, slow, pleading kiss like he's never given me before in all this time. It's a kiss for the movies, really. The kind of kiss women dream about, and it's happening to me, and he's the one giving it. I never thought - never, in all these years, that I'd find my fairytale prince, but he's here, and he's exactly who I dreamed he'd be._

_"I need some time to know for sure, but I think I love you too. And I only need time because figuring myself out in general is going to take time, but I'm so sure that when I have processed everything, well I'll know for sure that you are the love of my life. Seriously, I couldn't ask for anyone better than you. You're so beautiful, Cora. So beautiful and kind, and loving."_

_“Stop it, you, you’re making me blush. I just...I worried more about you before you fell off the horse than I ever have since it happened. You seem so much happier now. I hope that you always stay this happy.”_

_“Well, it’s not as if it’s going to make me suffer at all to see you blush. In fact, I think I’d rather like it. Ah,” he whispers as I feel my face heating up, “just as I thought. You’re blushing, and I love it. You look so cute right now; I have to kiss you.”_

_I smile to myself, but also for him, as he grabs both sides of my face, wraps one of his arms around me and brings his lips to mine. I return his kiss with all the gratitude I can possibly muster, which is a metric ton of it, and we fall down onto my bed. I wish I could summon the nerve and the desire to have sex right now because it really would be the optimal time. I mean, it’s worth trying it, right? He deserves it with how wonderful he’s been lately._

_“Do you want to take our clothes off? I’m feeling a little more interested now…”_

_“Are you sure, baby?”, he asks as he runs his fingers over my arm. “You seemed very disinterested and discouraged before, and I don’t want you to do anything you don’t really want to do. It wouldn’t be fun for me if it weren’t fun for you, anyhow.”_

_It’s like a fire has been lit inside me, or beneath me, or something. Now that he’s said that it’s almost like those feelings of interest that I couldn't summon before are all rushing through me at once like blood through my veins pumping my heart so it races a kilometre a minute. My tender place floods, and I lean my head back as I bring Roger’s lips to my neck._

_“Yeah, I’m sure, trust me.”_

_His lips dance along my neck and he brings a hand to my clothed breast. I gasp as he squeezes it because his touch has never made me feel this way before. I feel giddy, and my body feels like it’s been struck by lightning, but only if the lightning were pleasurable. His lips on my neck and his hand on my breast drive me to ecstasy, and I reach my hand for his cock, now growing hard beneath my hand and under his jeans._

_“You’re going to drive me to tear your clothes off of you any minute if you keep on like this,” he growls in my ear, and my body tingles when his voice tickles my eardrum. It’s ignited every single one of my senses, his low, gravelly whisper._

_"I wouldn't argue," I whisper back to him as I undo the button on his jeans and pull down his zipper. I reach my hand inside his trousers and grab a hold of his swollen cock and watch as he shuts his eyes tight and bites his lip. He opens his eyes and peers at me, his lips pouted and his eyes wide, and reaches for my blouse. I let him pull it off of me, revealing my bra to him, and for the first time since the first time we made love I feel completely comfortable and ready to receive._

_"Good to know," he whispers as he unhooks my bra and throws it to the floor. His just out of the shower scent: soap, shaving cream and aftershave -the boring excuse for a skincare routine that men have the audacity to think they can get away with- squeezes into all my senses somehow, lights me up like a lantern, and I throw my leg over his long, feathery thighs._

_I crawl into his lap, and I pull my skirt up over my thighs and straddle him. Then I wrap my arms around his delicate, regal neck and push my breasts into the cavern of his chest. His heart beats heavy against my breasts, and I stare up into his strange, equine face that somehow looks beautiful the closer you get to it. His sea glass eyes dance over the sea in my own, and we're perfect: we're one. He is the glass floating upon my sea._

_When our eyes meet he brings his hands into my hair and he grasps all of my hair at its root, and he pulls my face up once more until our lips are barely apart. He nips at my lower lip, and with his hand deep in my hair he brings our lips to meet. I smile as his lips force themselves into me, but I feel no will to fight. I've never stared into Roger's eyes this way before. I don't think he's ever looked at me this way...not once. I don't think we've ever gotten so close and stared at one another this way._

_I love this man. I love every darling inch of his lean, strange body and his unique, fascinating face and every muscle and bone. I love every broken, imperfect part of Roger, and finally it's like he sees all that in me, too. It was beginning to feel as if he never would._

_He pushes me off shortly after I begin to straddle him so he can take off the rest of his clothes, and when he's free of his trousers and his underwear I slide myself down on his throbbing, girthy cock. I'm so wet that I have very little trouble, and it's been so long since that happened...but I don't think that I've ever wanted it this badly from anyone before. It's not as if I've been with too many men before Roger, you know, but I've never wanted a man the way I want him right now._

_He forces his cock deeper inside me and I ride him, guiding my hips up and down his length and moaning as his hips collide with my own._

_"I want you now more than I ever have. You're so sexy this evening, you know. I want to let you ravage me. Do whatever you want as long as you keep looking at me that way," I whisper as I grind my teeth on his earlobe just enough to send chills down his spine._

_"Don't tease," he whispers as he pushes himself deeper into me, and I bounce on him harder and harder until I'm breathing heavy and I'm feeling myself start to sweat._

_I moan louder with every thrust of his cock inside my body, and I grab a hold of him and let my hands dig into the skin on his back; I'm begging him to please last a little longer, please don't stop._

_"Oh, don't stop, Roger, please," I sigh._

_"I'm only halfway there," he grunts at me as he pulls my hips down onto him. My breasts slam against his body and he wraps a long, muscled arm around my waist, and he moves his hand down until he's got a hold of my bum._

_I look up into his face, and our eyes meet again as he starts to slow his pace down. I can tell when Roger's getting ready to cum because his body starts to tremble, and I can feel his cock pulsing inside me. It's how I always know to pretend I'm about to get off. But I may actually get off this time if he doesn't let it go too soon, and I never have before. Not just with him, but like...ever. I've never had an orgasm from sex, is something wrong with me?_

_I think something must be wrong with me._

_He's not done anything wrong...in fact, I think he's done everything just right, for once. It's all as it should be. He's even looking right at me for the first time: he's not clenching his eyes shut and keeping his hands only on my collarbone…I should be far more interested than I am given how amazing this felt just moments ago, but even though I feel so drawn in and hypnotized and pleasured by the way he's looking at me it's like I just can't make it happen. It isn't his fault, I swear it, but I've completely deflated; I don't even want to do this anymore._

_So I lean my head back, and I let a few breathy, desperate moans escape my lips. I pull at his hair and make sure to shake as I scream his name. This is all I've ever had to do to get him to believe I'd finished before. He pushes me up right as he starts to leak cum and I kiss him full on the mouth before I run to the bathroom. I'm sure he'll understand._

_"Are you alright?," he calls after me._

_"Yes, yes, I'll be right back, dear. I've just got to go right now. You know how it is!"_

_I don't know why I couldn't finish, I wonder as I stare at my own face in the mirror in the bathroom. I don't know what's wrong with me; it was all quite so perfect, and yet he still wasn't enough for me. I must be insatiable, or frigid, or something. The way he was looking at me, it was perfect. It was everything I've ever wanted; I should have been able to reach orgasm, but I'm defective, I suppose. I wonder if I'll ever get to have one._

_For now it's best to let Roger be and not trouble him with something silly like this, not after all he's been through. It would be better to talk about this after things have settled down for us, or maybe not at all. It's not terribly important, that I get off. After all, I don't feel much of a drive toward sex anyway._

_But he looked at me for the first time, and I can still feel my heart pumping and my tummy doing flips._

_I can't wait to tell Maisie._


	54. Rosemary - Cambridge, April 2006 - Syd's Favourite Pub

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner after the wedding seems perfectly pleasant to everyone who isn't Rosemary Breen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an FYI guys, the auction storyline is one I'm not gonna be able to fully tie up, but it will be tied up in the epilogue. Thanks for understanding - I just don't have the time and energy to devote to completely tying it up so while you'll get more of Rosemary in Volume III (although not as much) it won't be the conclusion of that particular storyline.

What a bore that whole excuse for a wedding this morning was. You'd think that a woman with as much money as May would have wanted a wedding that was much more tasteful and less... well, absolutely nothing. That's all it was: nothing. From start to finish it was a lot of fuss for very little, and I was almost insulted by how I’d been emotionally assaulted into this only to be met with that. It couldn’t have even been a nice payoff. She got herself done all fancy - fussed with her hair for about an hour, did all kinds of bizarre shit to her skin and then let Cora paint her up like a whore with the red lipstick. And then she stuffed herself into that dress, and for what, exactly? The chance to stand at our shoddy little courthouse with my brother and say some nice words? It was supposed to be a wedding, for Christ's sake, not a staged reading. There should have been music, and flowers (although he did pick her that bouquet full of those very plain orange flowers...if it were me, I would have been insulted that my husband equated me to such a common, dull flower)... dancing and finery. It was an absolute bore. If I had wanted to spend the morning in court I would have gotten a speeding ticket instead.

I don't know how she found it in her to kiss him, really. I'm surprised he showed up dressed appropriately at all. It had to have been Ian's influence there, as my brother can hardly be persuaded to wear a shirt some days, God forbid he should shamble himself into a collared shirt and khakis. There were days before she came back when I had to come round to his house in the middle of the night and fetch him after a neighbour called to complain about him wandering about in his underwear again. I suppose those days are over, for there is absolutely no way that Mr. Wells will ever be seen out of the house indecent again, thank God for small favours. Still...I don't know how she ever found it in her to touch lips with him. Perhaps it's only because he's my brother, but he's unsightly and has taken horrid care of himself. That's why I'm convinced she's only in this for what she can get out of it: there's no way that she can look at my brother for more than five seconds and not be horrified or feel physically ill. What a shame it is that only a few years of heavy drug use took away all of his luminous beauty. Really, just look at him there: drinking a beer with that stupid smile on his weathered old face. He has nothing to smile about. Three months to live (as far as he knows), a fat old wife, and that even in death he'll still have a bunch of strange loners obsessing over him. 

Ian's been allowed to invite his whore of a wife, Jill, who I strongly disapproved of from the first time I met her. We were lucky our relationship healed after he deliberately went against my wishes and married her anyway, even after I’d warned him the kind of life he’d be doomed to with her. She's full with child now, ready to pop in the next month or so, and I've never found myself wishing harder for a pregnant woman to fall down the stairs before. She's a nasty little harlot with a sordid past who comes from a terrible family; I can't even imagine what kind of a mother she'll be. If I don't get a call from the government to step in and remove the child I will be quite (unpleasantly) surprised; although I won't want to care for the little goblin it will be my responsibility as a good Christian woman to make sure that the child is raised by a strong and positive influence. 

"Jillie, I love your blouse," May purrs, and I notice her hand in my brother's, and him staring down at their joined hands with that goofy, ugly smile. 

"Oh, thank you. I got it on sale at that place you recommended on Elm St."

"Jane's? Isn't it just lovely?"

"Yes. She's got such an interesting array of things there, including some great maternity clothes, as you can see. I feel blessed, because I can't find maternity clothes worth a damn anywhere else."

"I know from my friends who've been pregnant that it's certainly tough. It's like they think the transition to motherhood means women suddenly don't care about how they're dressed."

I don't think I've ever had such a pleasant conversation with my daughter-in-law, especially about clothes. If we have had pleasant conversations they've been about church or her unborn child, or my son. I've never understood women who invest so much time in looking tempting to men. And to know that even while pregnant my daughter-in-law is invested in that disgusts me. What does my son see in this young woman, anyway? They make maternity clothes dowdy for a reason, you know: once one becomes a mother, one is supposed to settle quietly into modesty.

Still, I can't help but feel the tiniest bit jealous of how quickly my daughter-in-law has bonded with May, and the same with my son, even with my son being a very helpful assistant to me in my quest to kill my brother and frame his wife. I was never able to get Ian to help me clean my brother's house the way May was able to, and I bothered him about it for years. All of a sudden when she asked he was keen to do the project, but I can nag at him for years to help me out and he can just tell me he'll get around to it and never actually get it done.

I watch as Roger leans over to whisper something in May's ear, and balk as she blushes a deep scarlet and turns toward him. Their eyes meet, a smile shared between them, and she pulls him in for a kiss: a kiss I have never had anyone give me. And then I remember almost exactly why I offed him in the first place, my dreadfully mediocre: he never appreciated me, the lousy bum. A vacuum cleaner salesman. He loved me so little he never tried to become anything more than what he was. If he had truly loved me he'd have become something greater than just a vacuum cleaner salesman so that I wouldn't be sucking at the teat of my brother's savings just for a hope of a comfortable life someday after sacrificing it all for others.

"Look at that!," Jill squeals excitedly, one hand resting on her swollen belly and one hand interlaced with my son's, "I'm so happy for you, Uncle Roger. You have always deserved to be happy with someone else."

“Well,” he replies, squeezing May’s hand and looking into her eyes, “I wouldn’t have ever been if Maisie never came back.” 

I fake a smile, as I’m supposed to do because no one is to know that I think this whole ‘marriage’ is a complete sham, but inside I’m nauseous and practically shaking with rage. 

“And I would have never known that I could love ever again if I didn’t come back,” she answers him, and her eyes shine as they stare into his. 

I once doubted that she loved him, and I think part of me still does (simply because to truly love my brother is impossible: he is a sickly, horrid, childish and feeble-minded little invalid and a total burden on all who have ever loved him, including her, and if she doesn't know it she's stupid), but after I heard her talking about him with Ms. Harlow last night I am having trouble convincing myself, and that makes my rage all that much more pure and hot. To think she thinks she knows anything about who my brother is after a few months. I’ve lived with him for decades, you know. Decades upon decades I’ve been putting up with him, but oh yes, he’s so easy to love in small doses, isn’t he? 

They’re kissing. Again. Pray for me.

This is absolutely pathetic. What’s the point of even getting married so soon before he dies, anyway, except to screw me out of my money? They’re certainly not going to be having any children together (nor should they were they given the opportunity - I can’t imagine what kind of parents they’d be. Thank goodness no poor woman was ever unlucky enough to get themselves knocked up by my brother. Any child of my brother’s would probably end up a useless burden like him, not to mention the trauma they’d come out of their childhood with having to grow up with such a lunatic father. At least if May were the mother the child would have had some semblance of normalcy, but any woman that would have stayed with my brother long term while he was young … well, I’d have to wonder about her mental health, also.

“Do you ever regret not having your own children, May?”

I don’t know why I asked the question. I think I was secretly hoping that it would cause her some kind of emotional pain, because I can’t stand looking at how happy they both are now. Why does everyone else get to be happy? I’ve not been happy one day in my life. Other people looking so in love and so happy … like May now does, the way her eyes light up like little shit colored fireflies as she stares into him, and he smiles at her...his eyes the same...it fills me with this steely cold rage that I wish I could harness. If I could physically kill anyone, if I had the courage to do it on my own without poison, it might be this old, fat nasty little cunt.

It’s like time stops. She turns to look at me, and she squares her eyes, tearing me apart with only a glance. I can feel her derision stabbing me directly in the guts like a sharp, jagged knife, and she’s got my innards twisted around the knife with the way the stare seems to last forever. Roger’s mouth has dropped, as if he’s mystified by why I’d ever ask such a question...because what if she does regret it? 

“No. Not at all. I chose not to have any children. I had my tubes tied in my late 30s after I left…”

Her voice trails off and she looks over at Roger again, and he squeezes her hand and leans over to kiss her cheek. It’s pathetic how she pines for David Gilmour even though she’s just married my brother. I never loved another man besides my husband...not before and not after. In fact he remains my sole sex partner. I haven’t looked at another man since I decided he had to be taken care of.

“You don’t need to keep going, Aunt Maisie. Mum, that was kind of impolite, don’t you think?”

The nerve of my son to speak against me in public. What must everyone else think hearing him disrespect me that way? It was an innocent question, or at least they’re meant to think that it was. And Aunt Maisie, really? He and I are going to have to talk about that later, most definitely. I was under the impression that my son wouldn’t be that familiar with Miss Wells. That’s what he said to me before she came, anyway. Perhaps I should have been keeping on him about it this entire time instead of trusting him not to fall into her trap.

“I was only curious, dear. It just seems to me it’s a bit odd for a woman to have had no children.”

“Why, Rose, I never had children…” 

What an imbecile my brother is. I clearly said ‘woman’. No one ever expected Roger to have his own children.

“I said ‘woman’, darling,” I spit through gritted teeth. He is going to be the death of me someday, I swear it. He’s so bloody stupid. Why did he even need to say anything? 

“I just don’t understand how it’s any different for a man or a woman not to have had children, Rosie. Having children is a choice somebody makes. Just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Many people who chose to have children shouldn’t have!” 

I know he isn’t talking about me, but it feels like he is, because the look he gives me makes it seem very obvious. When Roger gets angry with someone his eyes turn evil. They get very cold, and if one didn’t know him well they may run away in fright (I’ve seen it happen - my brother can be very frightening when he wants to be) thinking he was about to maim or kill them. Of course, I know he isn’t capable of hurting a fly, but it doesn’t change the very fact that he looks quite frightening. What right does he have to be angry, anyway? It was an innocent question.

“I was only asking…”

“It’s alright, Rose. Don’t worry about it. I don’t feel any regret for not having had my own children. This little blessing will be more than enough for me," she says as she smiles at Jill across the table. 

Jill meets her smile with her own warm, gummy one, and I feel the need to interject, throw all of their drinks across the table and pull off the tablecloth. How dare she hone in on my grandchild? She’s already taken my brother from me. What, does she have to steal my grandchild now, too? Is one member of the Barrett/Breen clan not enough for her? Can this woman get enough attention, or does everything have to get sucked into her black hole of needing to be liked by everyone?

“I can’t wait until little Emily comes,” says Roger as he rubs his hands together. When Ian was a baby, Roger used to love to play with him and hold him. For everything that’s wrong with him he is wonderful with children. 

“Now, Uncle, we’re waiting to be surprised. How do you know the baby’s going to be a girl? It could be a boy. I’m hoping for a boy, myself,” Ian says as he lays a hand gently on Jill's belly. She looks at him, and I notice that the way they look at one another is the same way that Roger looks at May, and here I am all alone with no one to look at me that way...having never been looked at that way by anyone. 

“I just know,” he replies, “a little bird told me the baby’s going to be a girl, and you’re going to call her Emily.” 

“I think I rather like the name Emily. We were fighting over girl names. Ian didn’t like any of the names I presented, and I thought his were rather...old fashioned.” 

I remember that Ian mentioned to me that he was trying to get Jill to agree to naming the baby after me were it a girl, and so when I see Jill's gaze penetrating my soul, blue eyes as cold as ice, I know exactly why it is. Old fashioned? Well, what could be better? The way women are today...it’s no surprise that she feels my name is old fashioned. She is a modern woman in every way, including the number of men she’s taken to her bed. 

“Emily it is then, if it’s a girl. Aunt Maisie, what do you think?”

There he goes again with this ‘Aunt Maisie’ bullshit. They haven’t even been married for a day and he’s already treating her as if she were one of us. It makes me want to retch. And why wouldn't he ask me? For God's sake I am his mother!

“I think Emily is a perfect name,” she says as she leans her head on Roger’s shoulder, and he smiles down at her and then places his arm around her and kisses her on top of her head. Then she, with her head still on his shoulder, looks up into his eyes and I notice her cheeks redden. “It was a perfect song, too, Syd.” 

“I never wrote a perfect song. I was a poor musician, and I’ll not hear another word of it.”

“It’s such a shame, baby. You are so talented.”

“I’m a painter. My days of writing and playing music are far, far behind me.” 

Roger isn’t a talented musician. She’s being kind. The music he wrote was absolute drivel, and I’m not sure how anyone with a clear and healthy mind listens to it and doesn’t immediately shut it off. 

“Perhaps one day you’ll play the baby a song, Uncle?” 

When Jill mentions the baby Roger’s eyes light up like he’s a child himself (which he is, without a doubt, and it’s worthy of your hatred because of all the problems it's caused everyone around him - how privileged he is to have never had to grow up like the rest of us, to just go on living in his mother's house cavorting about on a bicycle and painting barely acceptable pictures), and he smiles at May, shrugs his shoulders and laughs a hearty, conciliatory laugh.

“If you asked me that I wouldn’t be able to say no, but I don’t have a guitar anymore, I’m afraid. Broke it in the 90s.”

“I’ll get you a guitar, baby. That isn’t a problem at all.”

“Okay, Maisie, but don’t spend a lot. I probably won’t play it at all after I play it for the baby. That’s not who I am anymore.”

She smiles at him (again - all this smiling is going to make me sick), she scratches behind his ears like he’s a fucking dog (which is probably how she sees him, how disrespectful), and they push their foreheads together.

“Look at how sweet they are, Ian! I never thought I’d see you so happy, Uncle Rog, but we are both so happy to finally see it. You look more beautiful than you’ve ever looked now that you’re in love.” 

“I’ve always been in love,” he whispers just loud enough for us all to hear, “but now my only one is home, and she’s my wife. I still can’t believe it’s real. I’ll probably die not thinking it’s real.”

Yes, well, hopefully you'll die tonight.

Jill starts to lightly jingle her glass with her spoon, and Ian follows suit, and both of them look at me expectantly like it’s assumed I’ll join in. Except I don’t, because I don’t want to watch these two ugly old people kiss one another. I can’t wait for Roger to take a bite out of his slice of cake and keel over and die. It’ll be the end of an era, for sure, but it’ll also be the end of this torture of all of my senses that I’ve been put through for months now. It’s the worst tonight, though, because I’ve never had to watch them kiss on the lips like a bunch of horny teenagers until now. 

“What does that mean? Why are they doing that?,” he asks, clearly confused. “Are you making music? I don’t think I can join in…”

“They want us to kiss, you silly,” May responds as she places her hands on my brother’s dilapidated, sagging cheeks. He smiles a big, bright smile as she pulls him in and their lips touch. He wraps his arms around her, and takes it much too far for public consumption with how deeply he starts kissing her, but she (luckily for me, and for everyone else in this restaurant, for that matter) giggles and then pushes him off. “Now, now,” she says as she pats him on the cheek, a hint of playful sexuality that makes me even more fucking sick in her deep, velvety voice, “you save all that for later.” 

Eugh. I know I gave her that tea I said was going to stimulate him, but it was really Belladonna tea which I made sure was the exact lethal dose as a backup plan in case the cake didn’t work. If he dies at home of apparent poisoning then it will be even more obvious to any observer that May killed him, and if she says she got the tea from me...well, who’s going to believe a woman they’ve already decided is a murderer? People are very quick to make judgmental decisions that way: especially when the accused is a woman. Nothing is worse, to most people, than a woman who kills a family member or loved one. And people are very quick to decide that a woman would kill a poor, sick man for his money...and with all the money she already has, it will be very easy to convince the public that money is obviously so important to her that she’d do anything, even and especially kill her husband, to get more of it.

And besides that, no one wants to think about two ugly old people fucking. No one. Not even old ugly people want to think about other old ugly people fucking.

“I just can’t help myself. My apologies, everybody,” he says sheepishly, and I have to wonder if the little retard would have realized that level of public affection was inappropriate if she hadn’t told him. He’s never been good at taking into consideration what other people find appropriate and proper, and it’s caused me so much trouble that thinking about it makes me wish even harder for him to just die already.

“Nobody holds it against you, Uncle. Nobody would hold it against anybody on their wedding day,” Ian says as he rests his arm on Jill's shoulder.

Now that we're all finished with our dinner I think I'm ready to introduce the idea of the almond cake I gave to the host to bring out and surprise them with...the one that will hopefully kill Roger when he eats it.

"Roger, dear, I've taken the liberty of ordering the two of you a wedding cake! I thought perhaps we could bring it out now that we've finished with our dinner? It's almond!"

I have no idea if my brother likes almond cake. I certainly don't like it. I just figured it might be such a unique taste that he'd be less likely to notice something wrong with it. I'm sure with May's love of food she'd notice if something were off, but I'm going to make sure she doesn't eat his piece.

That's when the whole bloody thing comes crashing down all around me. Blast it all. Blast it all to Hell, even.

"Rosie, Maisie…", he starts off, and then he turns to her and smiles. He looks back at me, and he shrugs while the corner of one side of his lips turn up: a hint of childish stubbornness breaking through the smile. "Maisie and I agreed we'd have this fruit and yoghurt thing. I wanted cake but when I tried the fruit and yoghurt I really quite liked it, so she made some and bought fruit and we are going to have that. I'm sorry, Rosie. You can still have cake if you want."

May's eyes meet mine again, and she rests her head on a curled hand. In a moment I feel the piercing of her glare, and the feeling of being discovered starts to eat me until I feel I'm about to burst. If I don't step out of here now I'm going to bawl, or flip this table. I'm liable to be moved to throttle her right here on top of it until her neck veins burst and her eyes popped, do you understand? I have to leave. Being under the frozen hellscape of her stare hidden behind a friendly smile - and I can tell because the corners of her eyes don't wrinkle at all, despite that my innards feel as if they've just been stabbed - is a very private, lonely hell.

It's going to drive me into a rage, and so I'm afraid I must make my exit now. One mustn't lose one's temper in a restaurant.

"Would you excuse me? I've got to get to the water closet. Apologies. Won't be a moment."

And with that I'm off to shake the rage off my feathers.


	55. Maisie - Cambridge, 1969 - David and Maisie's House - A few hours before the party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie gets ready for the party, and when she's finished, David surprises her.

_I am a little angry at Cora, I guess, because she ditched me for Roger, but I actually kind of understand why she did it ..so I'm not really that mad. Roger's been really lovely with her lately. He's been really considerate, I guess, and attentive, and funny. Really charming. It's kinda stunning, actually, because we've all talked about how we really enjoy having Roger around now._

_So I can't really blame her that we didn't get ready together, because I actually didn't mind doing it myself, and she should enjoy every minute she has left of this version of Roger because I doubt that when he comes back he'll be the same._

_In fact, I'm almost certain that when Roger wakes up from whatever the fuck this all is he's going to go back to being the same old weird, sallow, sour, angry and shitty Roger, and I won't even like to look at him again, but for now I guess he's pretty okay. He's alright, he talks enough, and Cora seems so happy and beautiful right now that I would break into my trust fund to keep him like this forever. It makes me feel so happy when she's happy. Cora's a special kind of radiant and amazing when she's happy._

_Well, I had to get ready on my own, so I had to do my own Dorothy pigtails and my own makeup, and I'm feeling pretty insecure about it. I used the colors Cora told me to use, and I'm already fairly good with makeup, so I guess it probably isn't terrible. But I wonder if I look a little stupid in this Dorothy dress, or maybe my hair would be wrong for the costume, or something._

_I'm looking at these ugly shoes David and I made, but they're my ugly ruby slippers. Our ugly ruby slippers, actually. We spent so much time on those things, and they're just horrid. We both agreed, and then laughed at it yesterday when we finished them. But I love them anyway. They've got their own vibe, and they've got the two of us all over them. I glued a few sequins to his cheeks, so he glued one on my forehead, and we may still be in the process of getting glitter out of the house. I love these ugly shoes._

_Anyway, I'm thinking about how I'm gonna dance in these tonight before I make the sacrifice when the knock comes on the door. It's not Cora's knock, and I didn't hear her come in, so it's gotta be David._

_"David?"_

_"It's me," he answers, "Are you at all ready yet, you imp?"_

_His voice sends shivers up my spine, even though he's being fresh, and I can't help but laugh at him._

_"I'm just about done. I just have to put my shoes on."_

_"Can I come in?"_

_"Yeah, come on in."_

_When he opens the door I burst out laughing just like he does at how his costume looks._

_"I didn't make it, don't think I could do anything like this on my own. I had it made by an old friend."_

_I smile at his lion pajamas. It's like a cloth lion suit with a hood that's got a mane and ears, and his friend even put a tail on it. He looks so funny, but it's cool too. He looks pretty fucking cool. His hair is hanging over each of his shoulders and the hood is coming down right over his brow._

_"You look…"_

_"Silly?," he asks._

_"I was gonna say charming," I respond. "I don't think you could ever really look truly silly."_

_"Thanks," he says, and then he looks up at me, and it's like the light is making his eyes gleam. He smiles at me, and he leans over onto the doorway. "There's gonna be dancing there tonight, you know, and should anybody ever ask me to dance I'm afraid I don't really know what I'm doing? So do you uh... maybe want to practice?"_

_My cheeks are almost boiling, and my heart is pounding in my chest. I swallow a huge lump that I almost can't get down, and my stomach drops into my knees, but it's good._

_"Yeah, let's do it. Do we...do we have music?"_

_"I've got a record player in the living room, so yes, we have music, Maisie."_

_I punch his arm with a playful aggression, and he giggles and rubs the spot where my punch hit, so I punch him again just a little, but he puts his hand on my head and pushes me back so I'm left swatting at the air._

_"Let me go!"_

_"You sure?"_

_I look up at him, and when our eyes meet for a second we're both standing there with our mouths open...both kinda shocked and frozen, and dumbfounded. Suddenly he takes his hand off my head and lifts his arm up to grab onto his hood and lets out a nervous laugh, and I look down at the floor, but make no mistake, I can't hide that I'm smiling._

_We both back away and I follow him into the living room where he places a record in the player and starts the player, and when the song starts he steps towards me with a smile that lets me know he's just as nervous as I am._

_"Don't laugh at the song."_

_I start laughing as soon as he says that because I can't help but find it funny that he'd even say that._

_"Why would I laugh?"_

_"Because it's corny," he says, and when the song starts he starts laughing before I can._

_David loves The Beatles, so I'm not surprised._

_"Why would I laugh at this?," I ask with a smile. "Did you mean to pick this one?"_

_'Something in the way she moves attracts me like no other lover…'_

_"Yeah," he answers, his voice hushed. "Yeah, I picked it."_

_He holds out his hand to me, and I take it. My body starts to feel hot as we come together, hands entwined and swaying along with George Harrison's voice. When he pulls me into him by my waist I have to concentrate on not letting my panties flood. My hand wanders up his arm and onto his shoulder, and I slide it behind his back._

_"I've never danced with anyone before, you know," I whisper, "except maybe a cousin or something at my bat mitzvah. Never, you know, with a guy."_

_"Just a guy, hm?"_

_"I didn't say that. But you are a guy."_

_"I guess I am," he says with a giggle._

_"You're a pretty good dancer," I whisper to him with an embarrassed laugh, knowing I am not nearly that good at dancing, and I'm probably making such a fool of myself._

_"I've danced a few times, but you're not bad at all for a beginner."_

_Our eyes are dancing together, too, and now I'm almost certain that David feels the same way I do about him, but I'm still not completely sure. It sure seems that way right now, doesn't it? It does to me, anyway. My body is right up against his, and his hand has wandered right into the curve of my waist. Then he dips me, and I can't look away from him as we rise back up, but when we're standing I finally look down and away, unable to keep my eyes on his eyes._

_"Well, that's … that's good," I manage to squeeze out._

_"You look cute, by the way, but I knew you would."_

_"Thanks, David," I say, letting his name linger on my lips as our bodies sway together. He spins me, and then when he pulls me back into his chest I gaze up into his eyes one more time, evaluating their cool blue and my reflection inside them. I begin to shiver, and sensing that, he squeezes my hand._

_"Are you cold?"_

_Quite the opposite, in fact. My body is so hot I could start sweating at any moment, but chills are definitely running up and down my spine._

_"No," I whisper as I lean my head against his chest. "Is this okay?"_

_"Sure, it's okay," he answers, and he's still squeezing my hand so I return the gesture, and I watch as his cheeks flush, too. "You didn't have to ask," he adds after a moment of what would be an awkward silence if it weren't so intoxicating. His voice is low and buttery, and I'm lost in every single vibration of it that I can feel coming from his chest with my head pressed against him._

_I could spend forever in this moment, maybe. I wouldn't complain if we got stuck like this for a little while, and part of me is wishing that it would maybe go farther than this. I would love to kiss David right now; it would be the perfect moment for it, really, wouldn't it? I might just get up on my toes and put my hand on his cheek, and if he didn't fight me I'd probably pull his face toward mine and kiss him. I'd bury my hands deep in his soft dirty blonde hair and with everything I could summon inside me I'd show him exactly how much I want him._

_But I'm not that brave, and I still don't know if I'm ready. He's been so respectful, but I don't think I'll be ready until I can go one night without thinking about...well, I don't need to say. You already know. Either way, even though I really wanna kiss him right now, I don't think I have it in me. He might reject me anyway, I think, but then our eyes meet one more time and I notice that the way he's looking at me... it's unlike how he's ever looked at me before. It's intense...there's a fire in his eyes...newly lit, but not raging. Only a flame that's started to catch, and I'm shrinking under the heat, but at the same time I want to get closer to it. I can feel my clit throbbing and my heart pumping out of my chest._

_As the music stops we freeze, and the next song seems to fly by while we stare into one another's eyes. I can't even really hear the music anymore because I can't seem to focus my attention on anything but David. I can't see anything else, or hear anything else...and as for the other senses, I'd really like to figure that out, but wow, is it too soon._

_"You're a really, really…" I want to say so much more than this, but I'm too afraid. "...Good dancer," I let myself finish, and I'm kinda kicking myself for not taking the opportunity to say anything else._

_"Well, now if anyone…" and he pauses as the corners of his mouth turn up into a sneaky, hinting  
smile, "asks me to dance, I'll be ready."_

_"Let me get my shoes on," I reply, breaking the silence that's settled and I realize we still haven't let go of one another's hands. I shyly pull my hand away and retreat into my bedroom, but I hear his voice calling after me._

_"We have to leave in five minutes," he reminds me, and when I return, carrying the shoes, he steps towards me and takes one from me. His eyes roam over it, and he turns it this way and that, observing the way the light hits all the glitter and sequins we glued on. "We didn't do that terrible of a job, then," he murmurs as he looks them over, "I think they're rather charming."_

_"I love them," I whisper as he gives them back to me and I slip them on and buckle them, "because we made them together."_


	56. Maisie - Cambridge, April 2006 - Syd and Maisie's House - the morning after the wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Syd accomplishes a very important goal as a wedding present, Maisie enjoys Syd enjoying the present she bought him.

I just woke up expecting Syd to still be fast asleep next to me, but he's not here. In fact, I woke up, stretched my arm out lazily to try and find his body to bring him into an embrace, but I was all alone in bed. I gotta admit that I was a little bit confused: in all the months I've been here (and it feels like longer than that, but also not long enough simultaneously...what a weird feeling), the only time Syd ever got up before me was that morning he went out for a bike ride intending to come home with breakfast, but he came back with tiger lilies instead. Maybe that's what he's done this morning, I wonder to myself as I stumble out of bed and throw one of his white sleeveless shirts on over my naked body and pull a pair of black leggings on over my legs and up over my butt. I pull a pair of fuzzy pink socks over my feet as I look down at my wedding dress and my panties strewn carelessly on the powder blue carpet next to Syd's shirt and khaki shorts where I left them last night when I collected them from the bathroom. Right when I sent Cora that text saying It went well! and sent Gloria a few pictures I made sure that Jill took for me of the wedding, that's when I picked them up and threw them on the floor in here, and then I curled up next to Syd again and passed out.

The dress looks better on the floor, I think. Not that I thought it looked bad on me, but when it's thrown on the carpet next to his clothes it really cements for me that the wedding was real; I didn't dream it up. Something about two people's clothes thrown together in a heap on the floor when they love each other makes the love all that much more palatable and real. It makes it obvious to anyone that sees that pile sitting there so carelessly that whoever those two people are they're definitely happy. So I leave the pile there, even though I really want to pick it up. For now that's the best place for it, I think as I open up the bedroom door to step out into the hallway and walk down the stairs.

When I open the door the first thing that hits me is the saccharine, warm smell of pancakes and syrup and the hissing sound of bacon sizzling in a pan. Well, how do you like that, I think as I rush down the stairs toward the kitchen to find Syd finishing up cooking breakfast for me wearing the dress I bought him, which it seems he unwrapped without asking me. And even though I want to be angry, when I see him in it I can't find the anger. I can't even see him from the front yet, only the back, but it seems I was right about the sizing because it hugs him perfectly in the areas where it's supposed to fit: the chest and shoulders. There's no sagging, and nothing seems constricted, and he looks (from what I can tell) very comfortable in it. The sunny yellow of the dress sits stark against the pale white of his skin, but the orange and green detailing is made all that much more interesting by the way his skin blends with the main yellow color of the whole dress. 

Unable to resist the sight of him wearing it I sneak up behind him and creep my arms around his waist, feeling the light, airy breathable hemp fabric that must feel so interesting against his skin. I squeeze his body tightly against me, and I feel him resting his arms on top of mine. We hold each other for a few seconds and I rock him back and forth gently for a few minutes before he pulls away and goes back to watching the bacon cook, but then he turns around.

“I had Kathy come to help me. I thought I’d burn the house down if I tried to do it by myself,” he says as he smiles sheepishly, “I made sure I got up very early and answered the door right when she got here so it wouldn’t wake you.” 

My eyes roam over the spread on the kitchen table: a stack of pancakes topped with butter and drizzled with syrup and sprinkled with cinnamon just like he remembered I like to eat, a bowl of strawberries, blueberries and raspberries with a can of whipped cream sitting by the bowl, two of the fine china plates set with silverware and napkins meticulously folded into triangles. 

“This is beautiful, Syd. Thank you so, so much. You have no idea what this means to me,” I whisper as I fling my arm around his side and burrow in close to him, tears forming in my eyes as I try to remember the last time someone did something like this for me. It was longer ago than I’d like to admit. In fact I think the last person who did something like this for me was Sharon, and that’s when I got scared and ran off. This time...this time, that’s not what’s gonna happen. No, this makes me love him even more, and those are feelings I can feel secure in, not scared of. “I know how hard mornings are for you, baby.” 

“I have been wanting to make you breakfast for awhile now,” he says with that same sheepish lilt, “but you always get up before me, you sneak. I thought the morning after our wedding would be perfect, so Kathy and I have been planning this for a week now.”

“I see you found my wedding gift,” I say as he goes back to flipping strips of bacon, but I notice they’re done. Resisting the urge to do everything for him I let him burn them a little instead of telling him to start taking them out of the pan. After all, it is his breakfast to make, and not mine.

He smiles at me as he peels the strips of just burnt enough bacon off their pan with a pair of silver tongs and drops them on a plate which he sets on our kitchen table, one of the few things left in the house that he made himself: a big slab of untreated wood nailed shoddily onto four planks to serve as table legs. Then he turns to me and opens his arms to show his dress off, and he spins around and giggles a little as it fans out around him. He looks like a delicate, beautiful dancer in a dancing gown dappled with sunlight and flowers spinning around in circles with that bright smile on his face.

“I saw the bag and I got curious and had to know what was in it. I know I shouldn’t have opened it before you gave it to me, but it was sort of calling me. Like I had to know what it was and what it would bring me, even though I saw it was from Jane because I know the bag has a little bow on it at Jane’s store. So I opened it because…”

I reach out for his thin, gaunt hand, and when I grab it I pull him toward me. I stare up into his sweet, warm, sunshine face and I place a finger to his lips, and as dry and cracked as they are this morning because I haven’t given him his lip balm yet I cherish every single patch of dry skin, every little crack in his the exquisite and magnificent lips of my husband. His soulful brown eyes spark a streak of starlight, a shooting star, and he grabs my hand and holds it against his face. 

“You don’t have to apologize for taking it out. I really wanted to watch you open it, but I like that you were so excited about it.”

“You aren’t mad that I didn’t wait?”

“No. No, I’m not mad at all. I also got you something else,” I whisper as I reach up to stroke his silky smooth earlobe with two fingers, one of the only remaining parts of youthful skin on his body, but every sign of every difficult year in his skin is another reason that I think he’s the most sublime human being I’ve ever met. 

“But wait, I want to tell you about this dress before you get that, and I also got you something else too, but you should sit down and eat your breakfast before it gets cold, silly. That’s what you always make me do.”

Defeated, but secretly happy about it, I settle into the plush pink floral cushion of the set I bought to tie on to these chairs. It was a compromise. He wanted to keep his chairs that he made, so I asked that we just tie cushions on them in place of buying new chairs, and he enthusiastically agreed. When I’m sitting he comes back to the table with his plate of bacon, and he places some strips on the delicate white china plate he placed in front of my seat. I smile up at him, lost in every inch of his perfect, unique face, while he smiles back at me. Our eyes lock as he picks a pancake up with a fork and just when we connect, and my cheeks start to flush, and my pussy starts to tingle he blushes a deeper shade of scarlet than me, and the pancake slips off his fork, crumbling into two pieces, and hurtles toward the hardwood floor. 

Syd lets out a loud, haunted gasp, and our mesmerizing eye contact breaks as his face falls.

“Don’t worry about it,” I reassure him as I get up out of my chair and kneel down to pick up all the pieces of soft, fluffy pancake off the floor and smile up at him. “There’s plenty more, I see.” 

“I wanted this to be perfect…” he says as he stands still there, fork still in the air.

“It is, though, you know. It’s absolutely perfect. I love everything about this. I love the way you asked Kathy to help you, and the fact that she came and did it all with you, and I love that you did so much of it yourself after she left. Especially the bacon. Bacon’s hard to do,” I say as I stand up, pick up a piece of crispy, burnt bacon and pop it in my mouth. It’s very flavorful even with the burnt flavor and it’s so crunchy that I begin to consider changing my mind about how bacon should be leathery and dripping with grease. Maybe it’s better this way. “Sit down,” I whisper to him, but before he sits he insists on serving me my pancakes. 

“I want to cut them for you.”

“Nonsense,” I respond. “Sit down and eat. You earned it.” 

He flashes me a grateful smile, and sits down in his seat across the table. I hand him a napkin to put in his lap so he doesn’t spill on his dress, and as he takes it from me our hands brush against one another and I’m reminded for a second of the way it felt to finally make love with him last night: it was like a flood had been violently beating against the gates and we finally opened them to let it all flow in. It was glorious, beautiful, untainted ecstasy and I’d give anything to get it back, but he just stressed himself out so much that it isn’t worth it. Maybe if it happens naturally, but we’ll see. I avert my eyes, frightened that my lust might be showing in them...worried it’ll make him feel insecure, but he grabs a hold of my hand and brings it to his lips. 

“I don’t know why you’re afraid, my Maisie” he whispers to me as I’m taken aback by the way he can read my mind, “but you shouldn’t ever be.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” I say with a smile as I push a piece of pancake into my mouth with my free hand, and savor the perfection that is all the love he put into it. “I was thinking about last night, and how much I liked what we did, but I didn’t want you to think that you disappointed me.” 

The flushing of his cheeks continues, and he smiles shyly down at his plate until a few moments later when he peers up at me without lifting his head. His eyes are playful, loving, and joyful, and his lips curl up into a mischievous smile now as he brings my finger into his mouth.

“I know you said no more, but maybe I can do it one more time. Let’s not say no forever,” he says in a deep growl that I know he knows gets me going because he always used it when we were young and he was horny. 

It’s the kind of voice that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Vibrations purring right against your skin...especially, if you’re lucky, right in or beneath your ear. He’s not the only one to use that type of voice on me, but the only time before him or since that it ever worked it wasn’t attached to any kind of love. That growl was the kind that sought only the flesh: this is a growl that seeks the heart, too, and what I’d give to be able to give both right now. My nipples are starting to harden beneath my shirt: I can feel them growing more sensitive and pointing through the fabric of my shirt. I wonder if he can see from over there as I stare into his face, transfixed and lost. My pelvis spasms as I feel my nether regions growing ready for him, and I slowly close my eyes and take in a deep inhale to let it go. Another time, Maisie, another time. 

“Okay, okay. We won’t say no forever, but I didn’t suggest it. You did,” I respond as I take my finger from between his lips and rest my hand under his chin, and I cherish the way his rough, scratchy chin feels under my hand. He’s cute when he hasn’t always gotten the best shave, or when he hasn’t shaven for awhile. He’s cute all the time. “I love you, Syd Barrett.”

He turns his head and rests his cheek against my hand, and his eyes reflect light right into mine once more, but I wish it could go on forever and ever. I wish there could be no end to mornings like these, where we sit across from one another at the table and tell one another how much we love each other only with our eyes, but now also with our words. I wish there could be decades and decades of mornings like this as there should be, as there should have always been. And more than anything I wish that I could ever learn to take someone’s love for granted. Not in a bad way, you know? More like I wish I ever had time to get comfortable...to know the other person would always be there. And although now I’m not angry, or resentful, not in the least, I still get hit with the hollow, sinking feeling that we don’t have forever. 

“I love you, my Maisie. So, so much. So much that nobody could ever make a number out of it. It’s just too big. But oh, I didn’t get to tell you yet how much I love this dress you got me. I love that you got the one I always looked at and wanted to wear. How did you know?”

“Well,” I say, picking up a piece of pancake on my fork and feeding him with it, and being met with a grateful smile that drives me completely crazy, “it wasn’t that difficult to figure out, you know. You talked about it every time you went into that store with me, and when I looked at it on the hanger I just knew.” 

"I am just so happy in it. At first when I saw it I was afraid to put it on. I was scared of what it would mean if I liked it, but I really like the way it feels and looks. I like how I feel in it. I feel natural in it, somehow. Like I should have always been wearing something like it. I never knew I could feel like that. Do you think it looks nice?"

His face: hopeful, but anxious, stares into me, waiting. It's like any one of my words could make or break him. He actually thinks there's a chance that I might think the looks anything but spectacular. As if I ever could. As if Syd could ever look anything but absolutely perfect to me no matter what he wears or doesn't wear.

"Spin around again. Let me see,” I say as I squeeze his hand from across the table, and he gladly obliges me. He stands up and spins around again, and watching the joy play around in his face as the sunny yellow dress fans out around him and he spreads his arms out wide makes me all that much happier that I bought it for him. When he stops spinning he looks right at me, searching my face for approval, and I get up from my seat at the table and walk toward him. “You’re spectacular. Beautiful. Absolutely radiant and perfect,” I say as I walk toward him and slide my arms around his thin waist. Thinner every day. And though of the three of them he’s the closest to my height, he still almost towers over me. Though, at 5’9, he is probably my perfect height. 

“You don’t think I look silly?”

“No, not at all. Not at all silly. You look beautiful. You shouldn’t ever worry that I will think you look silly, Syd, because I could only ever love every inch of you.” 

“OH!”, he yells as he sits back down again, and I follow, “when we’ve finished I have another gift for you. I’m so excited to give it to you.”

“I have another one for you, too,” I say, thinking about the gift I bought him with a smile. 

“Let’s finish our breakfast, though, as it’s already getting cold. We’ve been so distracted.” 

In the next few minutes Syd and I eat our breakfast together, talking and every few moments breaking out in laughter at whatever. He makes silly faces, we reference something that happened long ago (seems his memories of our youth come and go..sometimes he remembers things, but sometimes not), or we talk about something that happened recently. Either way we’re laughing so hard that time flies by and before I know it we’ve finished our meal and it’s been a half hour. When he finishes his last bite he springs out of his seat with unbridled excitement and implores me to wait for him to come back with my gift, but I get up and start our coffee and fetch the lily bulbs I’d been hiding from him in my purse. I hold them in one hand and brace myself for how excited I hope he’ll be when I give them to him: he’s been talking about trying to start a new garden for the next homeowner, and even though the topic fills me with that sense of dread and emptiness I know that it makes him happy to think and talk about it so I thought these flowers, our flowers, would be perfect to start with. 

Syd returns carrying a painting, and my heart skips a beat as he turns it around and I realize it’s me...it’s a painting of me from that night when I was doing my skincare routine and I found him studying me. I didn’t know what it was then, but he must have been looking me over to figure out how to capture my expression. I look over each beautiful stroke of paint: the silvers and whites in my hair, the different flecks of brown and gold in my eyes, the pinks in my lips and cheeks, the way he captured even the fine lines around my eyes and mouth without making them as obvious as I think they are. My mouth is wide as I gaze into the mirror with my hands to my face, patting in excess serum or something. It’s quite possibly the most beautiful painting I’ve ever seen of his. Not that the others aren’t beautiful, but they aren’t quite so lifelike. Syd has a really interesting way of looking at the world; I wouldn’t call a lot of his paintings true to life, as amazing as they are. I’d call most of them kind of avant-garde. Whimsical. But this one is so lifelike that even the light is hitting it exactly where it should. I swallow all my words: not because I want to, but because I’m so shocked by the absolute beauty that is standing in front of me … both my husband and this painting … that I can’t find air to breathe. When I finally find air again the first thing I do is let an excited squeal escape my lips, the kind I haven’t let out in decades: the kind of squeal that an excited young twenty something lets slip when she is greeted by her first love coming to greet her at the door after she’s come home from grocery shopping. I want to run toward him and hold him tighter than I’ve ever held him and kiss him until he can’t breathe, but I’m frozen in place, and my heart is pounding in my chest. My eyes are tearing up again, damn it. I squeeze the bulbs in my hand, determined not to overshadow this beautiful moment that he’s giving me with my own gift, and then I let my tears come. 

“Oh, Syd, it’s…” I can’t even continue my sentence because I’m in such shock, but I bring my hand to my mouth and tears are now rolling down my face. “It’s...it’s so beautiful, my god.”

“I called it ‘Too Much Fuss’ because you don’t need to do it, but you looked so funny and sweet when you were that I had to paint you.” 

I walk over to him, hand still over my mouth, and tears still flowing down my face in a flood, and I run my fingers over the rough canvas and treasure the waxy feeling of the paint beneath my fingertips. My gaze moves up to meet his, and we find the light in each other’s eyes: the light of love that we never should have lost. I move my hand from the canvas to his gentle, but weathered face, and I cup his cheek with the palm of my hand. 

“You’re just the best,” I whisper to him. “The best everything. The best friend, the best husband, the best painter, the best...everything. I adore you.” 

“Did you get me crisps for my other gift?,” he asks, breaking the loving silence that settled around us as we took in one another for a few more minutes. “I’m joking. I know I’m not supposed to eat them.”

“I’ll get you a bag of chips another time. I got you something even better than that,” I say, fingering the bulbs that are still clamped tight in my hand. After a few minutes of making him wait I pull my hand out and open my palm, and his eyes light up at the sight of the lily bulbs. “I got these from a nursery near Cora and Judy’s house. I thought we could plant them together for that garden that you wanted to start because it would be such a good idea to have the very first flowers we plant there together be these ones.”

“Are those...orange daylily bulbs?”

His expressive eyes are wide with wonder and shock. They’re taking in every inch of the bulbs as he leans the painting against the dining table and takes them from me. He brings them close to his face and turns them over, inspecting them in all their weird, tubular glory. They look like little potatoes to me, very unlike the beautiful thing that they will eventually produce. 

“Yes, baby, that’s exactly what they are.” 

“I...I love them! I love them, and I can’t wait to plant them with you! We should do it in June. June, or July.”

“Not too long from now, okay?”

I don’t say this, but the shadow of death lingers in this house a little more all the time. At least it does for me, I don’t know about him. I never ask him if he feels it, but I feel it sometimes lingering here, waiting to take him away from me. It takes everything in me some days not to focus on it, but instead to bring my focus back to now: where Syd is still with me, he’s still real, and he’s still so vital for someone that should be (according to his doctors) suffering so much.

“Okay. How about June? I don’t want to plant them too early.”

“June is fine with me, baby.” 

I take the bulbs from him and set them down on the table, and then I take him in my arms, wrap my arms around his neck and plant a kiss right on his lips. We get lost in the dance our lips are doing together, finding and losing one another again as we grasp at one another with a desperation that feels so new, but also so familiar, to me. His hands find my waist and he squeezes me so hard I stumble, but he catches me before I fall, and our eyes lock onto one another just like they did before. I slide my hands up the sides of his face and then again down his back until I’m clutching his waist, too, and I leave a kiss right under his earlobe. He shivers as he returns the favor, but he blows some air into my ear and I giggle as I jump a little bit from the way it startled me. 

“You’re fine with me, baby,” he says with a jovial wink. Just like that day. Just like that day he stole me right from under Roger’s nose.


	57. Maisie - Cambridge, 1969 - Ravenwood Meadows Barn - The party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie has two very tempting encounters, only one of which she (thinks she) wants. Thanks to a drunk Cora, Maisie has David stolen from her mid-dance, and she's left with New Roger, who seems to have a lot more courage than he did before.

_The barn looks exactly like Cora and I wanted to. I guess the people we hired to decorate it knew exactly what they were doing, because it’s perfect. Cora seems to be ace at planning parties. I don’t really know all that much about it because my mother used to plan all of mine. In fact, it was one of the only things that she liked to do for me at all and that she always did without holding it against me later. So I never had to do that myself, but I tried to help as much as I could. We went out one day and bought a few decorations: some strings of orange lights, some plastic pumpkins, and a jack o’lantern head for the headless horseman we had made. We also made some ghostly rags with holes in them and Cora had stencils made for the outlines of scary trees that we cut out. We had a few decorations made also, and we had David’s little brothers carve some real jack o’lanterns for us in exchange for invites. I thought they were much too young, but David couldn’t get them to do it for anything else. Cora also ordered a creepy orange chandelier, the kind that hangs from the ceiling like The Phantom Of The Opera._

_I see the strings of lights adorning the walls, illuminating the barn with a soft orange light, but there’s also some dim orange light coming from the chandelier which hangs above us menacingly. The entire atmosphere is terrifying, from the silhouettes of the trees taped on the walls, the headless horseman lurking in the front corner of the room, the old wagon draped with a burlap tarp with fringes hanging from the sides and the jack o’lanterns glowing around the room._

_The air smells of hay, pumpkins, flame and there’s a lingering smell of barn animals, but I’m able to ignore it somehow. Ever since what happened with Syd I’ve become really sensitive to smell, so I’m glad it’s not overwhelming me because I really want to stay the whole time and for us all to enjoy ourselves. I want this party to be as perfect as we planned it to be._

_We hired a band that wasn’t Pink Floyd so the boys could enjoy the party instead of making it another gig, and they’re setting up getting ready to start playing. They’re all pretty cute, and they have a girl singer which is cool. They’re called One Girl, 55 Raindrops. Weird name, but it’s not bad. I lock eyes with Brittany, the lead singer, who I interviewed when I was trying to find bands. She and I connected instantly, and I think Cora might have gotten jealous when we all met because she was so snippy with Brittany, but I don’t know why. I just think Brittany’s really cute, is all. She’s got this short brown hair like Twiggy’s and she’s dressed pretty masculine in just a t-shirt with bell bottom jeans and sneakers. Cora’s cute, too, though. Cora’s beautiful. Brittany is more my type though. I like the androgynous look. David and...well yeah, David... is pretty androgynous, so it makes sense, doesn’t it?_

_She smiles when we lock eyes, and I look down, my cheeks heating up. I wave when I’m able to move my eyes to meet hers again, and then as quickly as I waved I turn away to look at David, who’s standing right next to me. We’re waiting for Cora and Roger. Jane, Rick, Nick and Amelia have all congregated over by one side of the barn away from me and David, and I’d guess that’s for Jane’s sake. I smile at David in his adorable lion pajamas with the red ribbon tied right before the tip of his tail, hood covering his sandy hair, and he smiles back at me. I can see even in the dim orange lights that he’s blushing just like I am._

_“You look...you look really cute. I don’t know if I told you that before.”_

_“You did, before we left,” I tease, “but thank you. You do too, Mr. Lion.”_

_He sticks his tongue out at me and he puts his hands up like claws, and roars at me, wrinkling his nose. Both of us break out into laughter as I play at cowering behind my wicker basket with the stuffed Yorkie that’s supposed to be Toto._

_“Oh no...oh no, this big, scary lion is roaring at me!,” I screech with a sarcastic, but teasing tone to my voice, “But I guess he can’t do anything about it, seeing as he’s such a coward.”_

_Now I stick my tongue out, and he crosses his arms over his puffed out chest, pretending he’s mad at me, but breaking any illusion he was able to convey before he can really even try to make it stick. He starts to laugh: a deep, sincere belly laugh and I reach out and jab at his arm._

_“What I do?,” he asks after he’s able to calm his laughter. His voice is shaky with the leftover giggles._

_“I don’t know. You’re just punchable.”_

_“You know what you are then?”_

_“What?,” I ask, and my smile that I can’t control is coming out even in my voice, I can tell._

_“Tickle-able,” he says, and all of a sudden he’s jabbing his fingers into my ribs and my armpit, and I’m squirming trying to get away. I can’t control the giggles that are pouring from my mouth like water from a fountain._

_“Stop,” I manage to stammer through a suffocating cloud of giggles, but I don’t mean it, and I think he knows that, so he doesn’t stop. Finally, after a few minutes he lets me go and I bend over, hands on my knees, to catch my breath. When I stand up I see him looking at me, and his eyes look different than they have before. They’re soft, but intense. There’s a scorching flame floating on the clear, cool, perfect blue water of his eyes, and if it were anyone else, maybe I’d be certain of what it was, and not afraid that it was actually something else. I turn and scope the room, trying to see if there’s some girl he’s looking at that’s behind me, but there isn’t. He’s looking right at me, and only me, and some pretty gorgeous women are walking past right now, so that makes it send even more of a chill up my spine. A good chill. A chill that tells me if he doesn’t stop soon I’m liable to knock him over and jump on his cock, but it’s more than that. I don’t just want that. I want what we have, but with sex, and kisses, and cuddling added into it. I want to be with him. And something about this party, this room full of people who I don’t know...who even he doesn’t really know … is making it all that much more obvious to me. It’s the way that even with this room full of people we don’t see anyone else._

_Before David or I can say anything else, Cora comes sneaking up behind me, grabs my shoulders and shakes me. After I jump (I really wish she wouldn’t do that, I scare so easy now, any kind of sneaking up on me can make me jump like that) about a foot in the air I turn around and marvel at how beautiful her Vampira costume looks. I almost don’t even see Roger there dressed as Dracula. The long black wig we bought that she styled into Vampira’s hairstyle looks exquisite, and with her long, lithe body the floor length dress with its spooky, haunted ragged bell sleeves and plunging neckline she looks heavenly. That corset she’s wearing is so tight I swear she does have Vampira’s impossibly tiny waist. She must be in pain. Her face is painted white, her lips a blood red, and her eyes done up with black eyeshadow and eyeliner, and false lashes. She opens her mouth and shows me her fake, sharp vampire teeth. Her big, bright smile clashes with the stark horror of her entire costume, but it just makes me feel warm inside to see her smile that way._

_“Do you like it?,” she asks. “And you look so, so cute, Maisie! Look at your little pigtails, and those shoes. Did you make them? Oh, you did a good job on your makeup too. See? You didn’t need me to get ready. You did more than fine on your own.”_

_“I do really like it, Cora. You look mind blowing. Unreal. It looks exactly like Maila’s costume.”_

_“Excuse me, she’s Vampira to us.”_

_“You’re right, you’re right. Hi, Roger,” I say as I look him over._

_I have to admit that he looks pretty damn sexy in this getup. Even I, who hates his guts, can’t deny that he makes a very sexy Bela Lugosi. Cora must have spray painted his hair black, and he’s slicked it back just like Bela’s. His face is powdered white, and he’s wearing some black lipstick (they must have raided a prop house or something for all this makeup I never see in the store, or maybe a stage production company. Cora has friends in that business, I think) and when he bares his fangs I feel my heart beating a little faster. Something about this new Roger has me a little knocked off my feet, and sometimes I find myself wishing he’d just stay like this, or even less...that he’d always been this person._

_His white puffy shirt is encased by a black vest with a gold border and golden buttons, he’s wearing black slacks and his cape comes up behind his neck just like it should. I wish I didn’t think he looked as good as I think he does. This is killing me. The last thing I want to be doing is looking at Roger this way. I’d rather lick a toilet bowl than think Roger looks as sexy as he does, but it’s like I can’t help it. It’s made even worse when he winks at me (damn it, New Roger), and his lips turn up into a wicked smile._

_“Wow, you actually said hello this time,” he says as he takes hold of my hand and brings it to his lips._

_When he kisses my hand a shiver runs through my body, a shiver not unlike the one I felt when David and I looked at one another just now. I find myself melting feeling the touch of his lips against me, and it’s making me sick. Desperate to escape the feelings that are overtaking me and causing me to feel my panties starting to soak, I look back at David and give him the smile that was forming on my face for Roger. He returns it, my cheeks heat up, and I feel tragically caught between the two of them. I turn back to Roger and look into his sad green eyes._

_“Yeah, well. Don’t get used to it,” I joke, but I’m not totally joking, and you know I’m not._

_He hasn’t let go of my hand yet, and so I stare into his eyes...he stares back into mine, that wicked smile still brightening up his otherwise sallow face._

_“You look like you’d make a good snack,” he says, baring his fangs again, and he laughs when I recoil and pull my hand away...fighting my baser urges._

_“Roger!,” Cora warns, “Don’t you scare her more than your costume does!”_

_“Oh, you know I’m just playing, Maisie. Your costume does look real good, though. You’re cuter than Judy Garland, even.”_

_“No, I’m not,” I say with a laugh, and I start to quiver as I find I can’t break eye contact with him, so I kind of sidestep and hide behind David to catch my breath and rid myself of all those thoughts that were making me so nervous and flustering me._

_Cora turns to me, pushing Roger away (she can’t possibly be jealous - she knows how Roger and I really feel about each other), and then pushes me into David. She sticks her tongue out at me, winks, and says:_

_“Go dance, you two. We’re going to, too, right, Rog?”_

_Roger turns to Cora and uncharacteristically leans in and kisses her lips. When their faces pull apart he cups her cheek with his palm and nods at her. I’ve never seen them look so in love, and I smile at David. We’re both so thrilled for the two of them finding their love finally, but I can’t help but worry that when Roger comes back to himself he won’t have any idea, and he’ll go back to treating Cora how he used to. For now, though, it makes me happy to see Cora looking so radiant, full up with happiness, ready to fly to the moon and spend forever with her lover. Being treated well suits her: I’ve never seen her look so beautiful as she does when she feels loved and respected by Roger._

_“Of course we are. I’ve been waiting to dance with you since you planned this party,” he says, and the look in his eyes is nothing short of loving._

_They spin away as the music starts: a fast song, but they’re dancing like it’s a slow one. I lose sight of them, but I turn back to David and find him looking me over, his cheeks clearly flushing red in the light of the chandelier that we’re standing directly under. He offers me his hand._

_“Do you...you know...wanna dance?”  
“Me?,” I ask, looking all around at the tall, thin girls in sexy costumes hanging around. There’s one dressed like a devil: a brunette with puffed up hair that curls up at the ends like all the girls were doing in America. Her legs are long, slim and all out there for the world to see. Her chest is hanging out of her dress: an ample, inviting chest. The kind that men fetishize and go nuts over. Her lips are painted cherry red, her makeup heavy. She looks like she’d be a lot of fun. And then I look to the other side of the room and see the slimmest, leggiest blonde I’ve ever seen that wasn’t Cora, but I remember David said those girls aren’t his type. “You sure?”_

_“Well, my friend, I came here with you, didn’t I? I dressed in a costume that goes with yours, and it was my idea, wasn’t it? Who else do you think I’d ask to dance?”_

_“One of them,” I admit. He looks at the girl who I’m motioning to with my head, the brunette, and he smiles at me._

_“Why?”_

_“Well...she’s beautiful.”_

_“I don’t know. She’s very well done up. She looks nice; I might have gone after somebody like that a few years ago. But you’re pretty beautiful, too. I didn’t notice her, to tell you the truth.”_

_“No?”_

_“Nope,” he says as he turns his juicy full lips up into a smile. “Come on. Let’s dance.”_

_He reaches out his hand to me, and I hesitate for a moment before I take it because on some level I really am afraid that this is all just a joke, or that he’s just pitying me. He couldn’t possibly have looked at me more than her. And I’m not really thinking that she’d be easier than me (not like I’m really that hard to get, unfortunately) just based on how she looks, but I don’t see what a guy like David would want with a girl like me, really._

_I take his hand finally, and he pulls me into a dance. The room is spinning as we join hands and start spinning with each other, and then he grabs me by the waist and pulls me into him. I bump against his hard, broad chest, and I quiver as he takes my hand again, and we’re so close together I can feel his heart racing beneath his skin. It might just be my own heartbeat that I’m feeling, though, I’m not sure...because my heart is definitely racing, dancing so close to him like this. I slide my hand from his chest up to his shoulder and then I cup my hand around the back of his neck. I’ve got very big butterflies in my stomach; they’re smashing into the walls and flying around...making themselves dizzy. Making me dizzy. I wonder if he’s feeling the same, but then I look back at that brunette again, and I start to compare myself to her and wonder why he’d like me. It’s hard not to think that he likes me though because...well, the way he’s looking at me, but I’m so scared to move on. Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe it’ll always be too soon._

_But maybe just because it’s a little soon it doesn’t mean that it’s the wrong decision. Being with David...living together...it feels like the best decision I’ve ever made. It’s the first home I’ve lived in where I’ve been allowed to be comfortable. Living with Roger...that was a shitshow after a few weeks. Living with Syd? That was objectively worse, all things considered. Living with the She Beast and my uncle, and their wretched spawn...terrible. Living with my mother and father...terrible. Living with David? I can be myself. I can breathe. I can be free._

_“You really helped me learn to dance,” I say, searching his unrealistically beautiful face. He’s so fucking beautiful, my god. It’s beyond anything I’ve ever seen. He’s more beautiful than any other man I’ve ever seen before. His face is so symmetrical...so feminine while also being so masculine...his lips pouty and full and kissable. His eyes: exotic, almond shaped...his nose prominent and masculine. And his body...his body is incredible. I move my hand from his neck down his back and rest it around his waist..and I can almost feel the curve of his tight ass even though I’m not touching it._

_His eyes bore through mine: two pools of icy water, yet they’re on fire. I stare back at him, trying to replicate the look he’s giving me, and the air stands still around us. I can’t even hear the music anymore, in fact I can’t hear anything at all. I can’t see anything else, I can’t feel anything else...even the wind from the fans and the soft, cool mist of the smoke machine Cora had put in by the stage against my skin that I could feel a moment ago. All I can see is David’s face; all I can hear is our breathing and the sounds of our hearts, and all I can feel is his hand on my waist and one hand holding my own...and the warmth of his body and its hardness in my own hands. It’s magic, but I can’t do what I want here in front of everyone. No; if we’re gonna kiss it’s gonna be in private. I’m too scared he’ll reject me...at least if he rejects me privately it won’t be as embarrassing._

_I didn’t even notice the song had stopped when I feel Cora grabbing at me. She’s beaming. She’s up to something._

_“I’m cutting in!,” she exclaims, ripping David away from me._

_Her breath stinks of some kind of alcohol, but I don’t know what it is. Ugh, she’s been drinking. I hate drinking, and how other people act when they drink. Whatever. If she wants to cut in I’ll just go stand by the wall and wait til she’s done, but she better not take too long with him. She shouldn’t waste her time with David, what with Roger being as good to her as he is right now._

_“Okay,” I respond, appeasing her._

_In a sudden move she shoves me toward Roger, and I bump into him. He catches me, and our eyes meet, and then I look away...but he laughs. He wouldn’t normally laugh. Stupid New Roger._

_“Let’s switch! Switching partners is fun, yes?”  
“Oh...okay…” _

_I stumble over my words as Roger grabs hold of my waist and then my hand, and I find myself reciprocating: resting my hand on his shoulder and lacing my fingers with his. I haven’t felt this way with him for a long time. Years. Not since 1967, in fact, have I felt this same way with Roger. In fact before now I would have been repulsed by the very idea of his touch, but for some reason right now it just doesn’t seem so bad. Desperately, I stare over at Cora and David, and I find David staring back at me. Seems both of us feel like we were pushed into something we didn’t want._

_“You alright?,” Roger asks me._

_I look up into his face, which is even stranger up close, but it’s not like he’s ugly. I think Amelia is just being mean saying he’s ugly all the time. He’s fixed himself up quite a lot from those early days...dresses like David now and not Syd (and the Syd thing just didn’t work for him). But now as Bela Lugosi he looks pretty sexy, and I’m ashamed by the way all the hairs on my body are standing up feeling his touch. I can’t deal with this; I just want to be back with David so I don’t have to feel these feelings that I never thought I’d feel again._

_“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just…”_

_“You hate me?”_

_And then he shows me a charming, warm smile that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen show up on his face before in the two years I’ve known him. It really throws me for a loop because it really seems like he’s another person altogether. I can tell he’s teasing me, but I’m filled with the urge to scream ‘YES’ in his face so loud the music stops, pull away, push him down onto the ground, and storm out of here to sit in the car and chain smoke David’s cigarettes so I can avoid storming back in here and tearing Roger limb from fucking limb. Even when he’s trying to be nice to me he pisses me off, but that smile...fuck._

_“Well, yeah…” I manage to stammer as his arm snakes further around my waist. My breaths get quicker and more frantic as I force myself to look to the side and down at the floor. I’d give anything just to make this stop, but I feel way too pressured. If I excuse myself what would Cora think? She worked so hard on this; I don’t want to ruin it for her, but I feel like I kind of am ruining it for her standing here with her boyfriend with my panties soaked through._

_“I don’t know what on earth I’ve done to you, but I don’t like that you hate me at all. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it for awhile, but you never wanna give me the time of day. Can we call a truce?”_

_It’s a weird feeling, the one I have now; I’m full of rage, but I’m also feeling completely flustered by the genuine smile on his face and the way he’s holding me. I want to break his fucking arm: tear it right from my body and twist it until I can feel the bones crack and the muscles and the ligaments tear, but it’s only because feeling his touch and watching the way his eyes move over my face is making me dizzy. Again I search out David, and our eyes meet from across the room, but this time Roger notices. He reaches out and turns my face back to him - the nerve- and I’m gripped by the nearly unbeatable urge to take my hand and plaster it across his face. Leave a big red mark right on his cheek. Yeah, that would be pretty fun, to smack Roger right in the face. This would be the perfect opportunity, too…_

_And I really do consider it until I look back up at him and see that he’s just not at all the same guy anymore that he was. Roger’s eyes always used to look either dead, or just sad. There was never any light in them, but there’s a luminous glint in his seafoam eyes now that is undeniable, and that does indeed make me hate him less._

_“Yeah, okay,” I spit. I know that sooner rather than later we’ll have the old Roger back, anyway, and that means he probably won’t even remember that I said this, or that he asked for a ‘truce’ for that matter. So it doesn’t really bother me to just go along with it and maybe try to get along with the Roger we have now until he comes back to himself and becomes a shit person again: the kind of shit person who just can’t help but hurt everyone around him and who plots and plans to get his way. That kind of shit person._

_“Doesn’t sound like you really mean it,” he says in a voice barely above a whisper, only loud enough that I can only just hear it over the sound of the band playing a song much too slow for the two of us to be dancing to._

_There’s a deep, almost sensual growl to his voice that he used to get, and in fact, that’s the only thing left of this guy that’s familiar to me. I remember it so clearly because the first time he used it on me I let him feel me up for the first time. I wonder if some part of him knows that. I wonder if he’s trying to tease me. He couldn’t possibly be._

_“I’m not sure if I mean it. You’re a lot nicer now than you used to be, but the question on my mind is - how long will it last?”_

_“I’m trying not to think about that. Seems to me I did a lot of things to hurt so many of you. I don’t want to be that way. So hopefully when everything gets straightened out I can remember not to hurt my friends. What are you looking at?,” he asks suddenly, having noticed me staring toward the back of the room._

_I’m looking right at David, and he can tell. He smiles one more at me, a knowing smile this time. Like he’s got an idea what I’m feeling. I can feel my stomach bubbling up with rage, but at the same time I’m shivering … there are chills running up and down my spine as Roger squeezes my waist a little harder now than he was before he caught me looking._

_“I’m just...I’m just, uh...you know…”_

_“You’re looking at David, aren’t you?”_

_“No, no, I’m just…”_

_I don’t have to finish my sentence, because Roger already knows I’m lying, and I can tell he does by the way he raises his eyebrow like that. In a moment the teasing smile he was wearing - the one that let me know that he knows I like David - is no longer there. Now, it’s different. He’s still smiling but it’s...it’s like he’s trying to look into my soul through my eyes. I can feel my own eyes going wide as my heart starts to race, my hands are shaking, and he can feel it. It’s obvious that he can feel it, because he squeezes my hand a little tighter._

_“You’re shaking. What is it?,” he asks._

_His voice, although still a low, steady growl, now sounds gentler. Concerned. He sounds raw, and real...empathetic. Human, even, if you can believe it. I hesitate before I answer because I don’t know what to tell him, but in my hesitation there is a lot of truth: I don’t know what it is._

_I feel on one hand like I need to get away. I just want to be with David; I came here with David and that’s where I want to be. What the fuck, Cora? How could you be so drunk that you’d step in on me and David dancing and make me dance with your boyfriend? My ex-boyfriend! This has never been a weird part of our friendship until now. And now...now I am kind of caught between liking it and wishing I could just bolt and wait in the car until the night’s over. My stomach hurts. I’m starting to sweat when he sways me gently and pulls my hand toward his shoulder. He drops my hand there and then wraps another arm around my waist._

_“Roger, I…”_

_“I know you like him,” he says, bending over to whisper in my ear, “David. I know you like each other.”_

_“It’s not like that.”_

_I recoil a little, angered by the audacity that Roger comes by so honestly in everything he does, but also in disbelief because that’s just not how things are. David just sees me like a little sister, which is what the nicer guys that used to reject me used to always say. I guess I just have a little sister vibe._

_Anyway - it’s just that right now Roger seems so serious, like he’s got his mind set on something. Somewhere, in some part of me that’s pretty gross and has absolutely no shame, I’m hoping that it’s me his mind is set on, but it’s not like it’s a realistic feeling. It’s not like this is anything I could ever really want. It’s Roger. I fucking hate Roger. God, do I fucking hate Roger. I hate his stupid horse face and his stupid chipped tooth, and the way he has to adopt someone else’s personality in order to have any personality at all. I hate his lanky body and I hate his amazing cologne which he is not nearly good looking enough to be wearing. I get lost in this sea of things I hate about Roger Waters for a few seconds, and then..._

_“That’s good, then. You know…”_

_He starts a sentence, but I’m too afraid to let him continue._

_“I…”_

_He holds my mouth shut and turns up one corner of his lips into a devilish smile. Any more of a smile and he’d reveal his terrifying fangs, which might even be less terrifying than this whole ordeal. His eyes turn into serpentine slits: mischievous, mocking, cunning. Planning. Even when Roger is a different person I still can’t shake the feeling that he’s plotting something._

_I glare at him and get ready to pull away and run just like my intuition keeps telling me to do, but he pulls me back toward him and I find myself pulled in tight against his body. My chest smushed against the top of his belly, his arm dangerously close to the curve of my bottom, his hand clutching mine. I can’t help but wonder if he’s trying to play his Dracula character, but something inside tells me that’s not what’s going on. I’m not sure why there’s a message in my head that’s so clear about this, but when it comes to the things I’m feeling about him...I can’t seem to make sense of that. I want more than anything to be able to say I’m not enjoying it, that I am disgusted and that I want nothing more than for it to stop, but for some reason the only way I can convince myself completely of that is to look over at David who’s now very conveniently broken eye contact with me to lean over and talk to Nick, who’s dancing with Amelia next to he and Cora. Fuck this._

_I was right: he isn’t playing a character. And what’s worse: that secret, gross, unashamed part of me that wished his mind was set on me seems to have been right. I don’t know if it’s the alcohol, or if Roger’s somehow woken up and he’s trying to get laid and he’s confused about who he’s dancing with, or what. It’s certainly not normal. It’s not like anything I would have ever expected to happen, and yet...here it is. At least when he’s back to normal we can pretend like this never happened because he won’t remember it. I’d hate to have to live with him teasing me over this._

_He brings my wrist to his lips and brushes his lips against it, and then slides them down my arm, and each touch of his lips against some of the most delicate bits of my skin makes me shiver more. A pain starts to shoot in my chest like a comet slamming into the Moon as fast as possible, and my face is heating up again. I’m marveling at the absolute audacity, but it makes me sick. I get ready to pull away, but then he stops, and he takes my hand and guides it up around his neck. His hands drift closer and closer to where I know they shouldn’t be, and where almost all of me doesn’t want them to be, but that selfish, carnal, idiotic whore inside me is really begging me to just lead him on and get what she wants: his cock inside her. His hands all over her body. Her mouth wrapped around his cock, taking inch after seemingly endless, perfect fucking inch into her throat. That’s all she wants from this, and it’s very obvious, but she is only a small part of me...and so even if he and I were alone, I would not give in. But she’s a big enough part to make me freeze in place, to stay exactly where I am and let him keep on doing what he’s doing. I am completely powerless over him, and everything he’s doing is just making me feel more trapped. The sickest part is that deep in my belly that little whore keeps saying, ‘but you don’t really mind, do you?’, and I don’t really know how to answer her._

_My breathing quickens like I’ve just done exercise or had one of my laughing fits that David and I have together. David..._

_“What...what are you doing?,” I stutter._

_“Dancing with you,” comes the very careful, polite answer that the whore inside didn’t want, but that the rest of me is almost glad he gave...except for the tone. The tone is still as seductive and enticing as it was before. “Why? Hasn’t anyone ever danced with you before?”_

_“Yes...David, like you just saw,” I say, setting my lips in a straight line and gazing back toward the other end of the barn where David is still chatting away with Nick, his hand on Cora’s shoulder and hers slung lazily over his extended arm. They look a lot more platonic than we do, and I start to move to pull away, finally, but again he catches me and pulls me back in._

_“Don’t go,” he whispers to me, almost like he was rehearsing it...but I don’t think he was._

_I’m helpless. I’m completely powerless against the tinge of pleading in his words. Only a tinge. I can tell it’s there, and I have no will to fight it, and it’s killing me. With immense reluctance I submit to him, and I settle into his arms. Before I realize it they’re both wrapped around my waist and my back, and he tightens his grip. He rests his head on top of mine, and I can’t tell if Cora’s looking at us, but if she is she doesn’t seem to see any problem with what’s going on between us right now._

_“Why not?,” I ask as he brings a hand up to my cheek, and I look down at the floor._

_“Because it’ll upset Cora to see you upset,” he lies...and I know he’s lying._

_I know Roger better than most, having had the ‘pleasure’ of living with him, and it’s very obvious when he isn’t telling the truth. His voice gets an octave or so higher when he’s lying. His smile doesn’t make the corners of his eyes turn up. He glances quickly to the side. He’s doing all of that right now._

_“If that’s all that it was you’d move your hands,” I hiss at him, but he laughs at me and moves his hand down to tug on one of my pigtails. I purse my lips staring at him, but I’m unable to fight him off._

_“It’s just that I don’t think I ever should have dumped you,” he says as he leans in and whispers to me, and then I can feel his lips touch my earlobe and then my neck so lightly I’d assume it was a mistake, but I know better._

_“Well you did, and you’re with my best girlfriend that I’ve got here now, and so maybe you should respect her and me and yourself, quite frankly, and stop what you’re doing.”_

_“Just give me a few more minutes. Just til the end of this song.”_

_“Don’t you love Cora at all?,” I ask as I look up at him, but I don’t pull away from his embrace._

_“Yes,” he says. “I love her very much. The past few weeks with her have been...amazing. Just amazing. She takes really good care of me, you know? And she’s sweet, warm, quirky...everything you wouldn’t expect a girl who looks like that to be. But I can’t seem to get you out of my head.”_

_“Try,” I reply as I start to struggle against him, but he subdues me. Why aren’t Cora and David looking? And why can’t I force him to stop?_

_“Do you think I haven’t? I’m with an amazing girl who I’m falling more and more in love with every day, but you’re still on my mind a lot of the time. And maybe I’m overstepping boundaries, but I had to tell you. I had to show you. You’re driving me batty. I don’t know what it is about you, but maybe it’s everything.”_

_His arms completely enfold me as I rest my arms against his chest, unable to find any will to fight. I look around him at David, who’s still chatting away with Nick while maintaining a very safe distance from Cora...meanwhile I’m being held against my better judgment by Cora’s boyfriend, and I feel disgusting, and I feel overcome with guilt...but I can’t stop. We sway together, with him still holding me too close, being too intimate, and me still surrendering more than I ever would want to, normally. Just when he moves his arms up my back and pulls me in tighter he looks back at Cora, and he places his hand under my chin and turns my face up to look at him. His intense green eyes narrow on my lips, and I know what’s coming. I turn my head away from him, but he turns my face, and with his hand still on my cheek brings his lips to mine. His kiss is gentle and vulnerable, just like the last time he tried to kiss me the night before I went off with Syd, the night we broke up. I can taste his lips, and the smell of his cologne is overwhelming me as I feel stuck in the vortex that is whatever he’s trying to do._

_What the hell? What in the world? When our lips meet I find my will to fight, and just before I pull away from this dance our lips are doing together, just before I’m able to land my fist right in his diaphragm and march over there and get David to come back and dance with me again, his eyes go wide and he starts to tremble. His eyes return to the way they always were before he lost his memory: they’re back to being sad and lifeless, but it could just be because of the situation._

_He pulls away, and I can hear his breathing grow rapid and heavy like he’s starting to panic. His entire body is visibly shaking, and his eyes look haunted. Traumatized. I guess he realized he was making a mistake, and thank god for it, because I really didn’t want to have to hit him._

_“I...uh...toilet,” he manages to stammer._

_I watch as he places his hand on his stomach and then over his mouth, and he speeds away and out of the barn before I can really even register what just happened. Thankful for him to be out of my hair, and to be able to say I was able to resist enough to fight him once he really went too far, I finally walk back toward David and Cora. David notices me first, and he breaks his dance with Cora, who smiles at me as she steps away from him._

_“Where’s Roger?,” she asks, looking around the barn for him._

_“Sudden bathroom emergency, or something. Maybe he had too much to drink. His stomach seemed to be having trouble,” I say. I’m too scared to tell her right now what he was really doing._

_“Oh, well. I’ll go try to find him.”_

_“No, no. I’ll go,” Rick cuts in from the other side of us. Jane has stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and presumably recover from all the noise, so he’s all alone. “If he’s in the loo with stomach trouble you definitely don’t want to step in there. I’ll just see if he’s alright. You stay and enjoy the party you put together.”_

_Grateful, I slip my arm through David’s. It feels better than I can convey in words to be back next to him where I feel like I belong. David would never play mind games with me the way Roger just did, and always used to. But Cora, alive with her confidence and her pride in the party she did the most planning for (I tried to do more, but she just had so many ideas and so many connections to turn them into reality that I couldn’t compete), grabs me instead._

_“A dance, meine liebling?,” she says with her best German accent._

_“Obviously,” I say with a laugh. She takes my waist, and we both giggle as we sway to the music. Grateful to be able to rest, David stands against the wall and lights a cigarette. I lock eyes with him for a moment and flash a smile at him, and he smiles back and waves at me. I playfully roll my eyes at him, and he laughs and motions for me to focus on my friend, so I do. I turn back toward Cora, and I enjoy every wonderful, hilarious moment that we spend dancing together._

_Even though that moment with Roger was pretty scary, I’m happy for it to be done. I’m happy to be with my best friend and well...whatever David is to me._


	58. Kim - Sussex, May 2006 - Pink Blossoms Japanese Restaurant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim is joined by her childhood friend, Ivy, for a meal. She spills her woes about David's behavior to her, and Ivy is cynical.

I came to this nice Japanese place with Ivy today: Ivy Stanton Chester, my best girlfriend from the primary school days and on. She’s a lovely lady. Very rich. Not rich, but wealthy. Wealthy, yeah. She’s wealthy: daughter of a member of the House Of Lords, married into one of England’s most powerful business families. It was interesting, the way our lives were so different, but I’ve never felt closer to anyone else.

She’s unforgivably beautiful: average height, but curvy. Buxom without being slaggy about it. Small, pointed features...almond shaped powder blue eyes always pressed and shimmering with the best luxury red and pink tinted eyeshadow. Apples for cheeks always dusted with red rouge...too daring for real life, I think, and a permanent, very sexy little smirk. Upturn of one side of a set of full, crimson lips. Silvery blonde hair hanging to broad, Rubenesque shoulders...the bitch. God, I’m so jealous. My body is certainly beautiful, but I do wish I were better able to pull that off than I would be, or have been able to. I realise we all want what we can’t have, but Ivy is very lucky. There’s no one in the world quite like Miss Ivy (to be truthful - my mother was Miss Ivy’s mother’s head housekeeper. I didn’t get to go to school with Miss Ivy Stanton, oh no...haha).

Miss Ivy is warm: her voice is the first taste of tea on your lips after you come in from a hard day at work, but it can burn you if you aren’t careful. She’ll sit and talk with you for hours when you need her, take you out shopping, take you out for a long drive: she’s already on her way when she knows you need her. She’s funny, she’s lovely. She’s generous, charitable, and hardworking. Puts together a lot of charity parties and organises a lot of community events. She’s always ready to give you a hug if you want one.

But I’m the only one who's ever been able to trust her. 

Ivy is a viper who will turn on most people with one perceived slight. A tone of voice, an oddly or poorly thought out comment, a gesture: anything can be perceived as a threat, and everything warrants a stinging response. A gossip. A schemer. A terribly toxic human being, but never to me. I have been the only one to see her through everything, and so she will never betray me. I know a very different Ivy Stanton Chester than the rest of the world.

Burned by years of longing for a lost love, Ivy could not back down from an arranged marriage, and she sacrificed being with the love of her life when she refused to make the right choice. He was sort of a lad from the other side of the tracks, if you were. A lot like the kind of person I was when we were growing up: son of a labourer, blue collar type. It would have tested their love, but the way they were...if they had united and forgotten about Ivy’s shit family (including her in-laws)they could have made it work. She was a coward, and she lives with that regret every single day of her life, as now she’s locked in a marriage with a man she can barely stand to look at who cannot remain faithful. 

I just needed a friend, I suppose. I get lonely sometimes at that big house now that the kids are grown, and Ivy’s very good at coming through for me in times like these. It’s the benefit of understanding how to be her friend. Things have been difficult since the birthday party. David’s been off. I don’t know what it is, but he’s been so distant that I can’t help but feel down these days. I miss my husband, and really...I suppose he's always been sort of aloof and distant, but it’s his personality. He’s like an old tomcat: that’s who he is, and I love him for it, but it’s been very pronounced lately, for certain. I don’t know what it was that happened right before the party, but ever since maybe a week and a half before then, maybe two weeks, he’s been someone else entirely. For all of the few times we’ve seen the kids for an extended period of time he’s seemed to me to be completely normal with them, so either he’s just great at putting up an act for them, or there’s a problem between us that he won’t talk to me about (as is expected after all these years).

Anyway, Ivy and I have just gotten our table and sat down. This restaurant is absolutely adorable, she was a genius for choosing it, but she so often is with this kind of a thing. It’s got the vibe of a place that’s perfect for two bored housewives to get lunch, and that’s what we have both become : Ivy the wife of a very ill-tempered and philandering trust fund arsehole, and me the wife of an emotionally distant although gentle artist. Two neglected, bored housewives getting lunch, trying to keep a stiff upper lip. How very English we are. This place is undeniably trying to avoid seeming so English, but I know the owners aren’t Asian folks. They’re as white as Ivy and me, but at least they’ve had the sense and I suppose the cultural sensitivity to staff their restaurant with people who come from the culture whose food they’re appropriating. Anyway...it really is nice, though. They’ve tried very hard with the origami cranes and flowers hanging from the ceiling, and the lanterns, and the very traditional Japanese depictions of beautiful, exotic women in kimono hanging on scrolls on the walls. There’s soft koto music playing to set the mood, and each table has some white and pink flowers sitting in vases in the center.

The nice boy who’s serving us today is named Sasuke, not sure how to pronounce that, but I wish I did know. He’s fetching tea for us, and when it’s delivered, I eagerly pour it into the tiny teacup with no handles that he’s set on the table in front of me. Ivy follows suit, pouring a stream of steaming amber liquid into her cup. Neither of us use any sugar: we’ve both physiques to maintain, and it wouldn’t be proper, or whatever. When I’m with Ivy I don’t have sugar, because sugar is a drug to Ivy, and it’s not worth having the debate with her about it.

“Tell me what’s going on with you,” Ivy starts, “for I’m simply so bored these days. Peter is away all the time, and when he’s home it’s just an endless string of whores coming in and out of my house at all hours of the night. It’s all I can do not to strangle every single last one of them. He and I haven’t slept in the same bed for years, you know that.” 

“I do,” I say, and I admit that I’m quite grateful that no matter how distant David gets it’s never come at all close to separate bedrooms. 

“Anyway, out with it. I simply cannot sit and ponder my own sad existence anymore: longing endlessly for Mike even though he’s married to some...some perfect middle class mother type who does her own cooking for her family and gets involved with the community. I don’t know. That’s not a bad way to be, or anything, but...oh, just listen to me! You called me, Kim. What’s going on?”

I hesitate, and then I bring the cup of hot tea to my lips and allow a little to pass through them just to test it. It’s very hot, I think I’ll wait, but oh how I need it right now. I blow on it as I look Ivy in her piercing blue eyes, ready to spill my guts to somebody for the first time.

“David’s just been so…” I pause to consider the weight of my words, and how best to express them. “He’s been so distant. I don’t even know who he is anymore, or at least that’s how it feels sometimes.”

“What’s he doing, then?”

“Well, I mean...he threw me this birthday party a few weeks ago and then barely even attended it. Sat downstairs in his studio drinking with his bandmates. I was stuck with Nick Mason’s bitch wife hanging around my friends and I all afternoon and evening barely saying a word to any of us. I swear to God we barely even saw him.”

“Oh, dear, I’m sorry to hear that, but you know how men are. They go off during women’s parties all the time. I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it, by the way. I know he had invited me, but I was simply too depressed to be there. I had seen Mike and his wife out walking, and … well, never mind.”

“The thing is - “, I say, ignoring her inserting her obsession with her high school boyfriend into the conversation, “- he’s never done it before. He throws me a birthday party every year. You know that, you’ve come to a few of them, and you know he’s always stayed around the entire time. I mean sometimes he and Rick and Nick would head downstairs and play their instruments, but never once have they stayed down the entire time. And I swear they were all so drunk upon stumbling upstairs that I was embarrassed. Red-faced, laughing, sweating. It was a disaster. I can’t imagine what my friends thought.”

“Why do you think he’s acting strangely?”

“That isn’t even all of it.,” I continue. “He’s disappearing all throughout the day, or going for these long drives and staying out for hours. Doesn’t really tell me where he’s going, either. He’s either not affectionate enough or almost too affectionate, and it feels like he might be compensating for something, if you know what I mean. If he’s home he’s usually in the studio playing these wailing solos on his guitar, and I’m almost getting sick of hearing it because it’s happening all the time. And don’t get me started on how he can’t seem to ever keep an erection when we have sex, or seems totally distant during sex, if he’s interested at all. And the weirdest part of it all is...well…”

I think back on the Google search he left open on his desktop a week or so ago. He was looking up some woman named Maisie Wells, and he added +May Wells to it in order to narrow the search down. She’s a columnist of some kind according to all the results, and at first I thought he was just enjoying her work, but then I realised that the last thing David likes to talk about is American politics, so I was left wondering why he’d look her up in the first place.   
“He’s looking this woman up on the internet. This columnist. Political journalist, or something. May Wells. She works for Time magazine, editor-in-chief, but I found a New York Times article also and a transcript for an appearance she made on MSNBC. Seems to be very interested in that weird electoral college thing that the Americans have going on. I mean, you know David. He’s not political. He barely even wants to talk about what’s going on here, and the American news what with that idiot Bush and all stresses him out so much that he doesn’t ever want to talk about it. So I’m not sure what he’s doing looking up a political columnist, but it makes me uneasy for some reason, and I’m not quite sure why.”

“That’s probably just a harmless celebrity crush. All men have them. No need to worry about it. Do you suspect cheating, though?”

I think this over for a second, and it’s upsetting to me that I even have to think it over. It’s so upsetting because in the past I would have just said ‘no way’, but now it’s something I have to actively stop and consider. David isn’t like that: he wouldn’t cheat. If he were unhappy with our marriage he’d tell me, he wouldn’t just run into the arms of another woman. Hell, he doesn’t even have any woman friends outside of Nick’s cunt wife. 

“I mean, I don’t think so, but one never knows, do they?”

“Well, I’m going to be honest with you...when men seem distant it’s often for a reason, and that reason is often another woman,” Ivy says as she looks over her menu, a cynical sting in her voice...a sting of many years of hurt and neglect by a husband who married her for convenience, for access to her father’s political connections.

“That’s not David, though. It’s just not how he is. He’s never even slept with groupies as long as we’ve been together. David’s faithful. I’m not...I’m not truly worried.”

“Ah, but you’re a little worried. I can tell. I can hear it in your voice.”

When the waiter returns we both put our orders in, and we hand him our menus. I look over at Ivy, who’s sipping her tea, and giving me a look that says ‘I’m onto you’, a smirk and squared, focused blue eyes. She always had an uncanny ability to perceive what people were really feeling, and this time is no exception: I -am- a little worried. It’s only been within the past few weeks that David’s been off, but I can’t wipe the feeling from my mind that there’s something he’s keeping from me.

“Soba noodles?,” I ask Ivy. “They always seemed a little too thick to me.” 

“They’re what I like. Chicken teriyaki, Kim? Do you have no sense of adventure?”

“Oh, shush, Ivy,” I say as I am finally able to sip my tea. Its bitter flavor hits my tongue in a way that immediately makes me want to spit it out, but once the immediate bitter taste fades I’m comforted by the hot temperature. That’s exactly what I needed. 

“What do you know about this Maisie woman?,” Ivy asks as she sips her own tea again and starts to fidget with her napkin impatiently. 

“I read a little bit of what came up in the Google search. A few of her columns, you know. Whatever I could find. It’s just...you know, I’m brought back to a moment in the mid ‘90s that’s got me feeling stuck on it.” 

“”What do you mean? What do the two have to do with each other?”

In the mid 90s, right after David and I had married, we had gone to a party at Nick Mason’s house. I think it was someone’s birthday party, maybe Amelia’s. After most of the people left we all sat around together around a fire pit, enjoyed the damp evening air and drank, and the guys started reminiscing about the old days touring and such. There was a remark that Richard Wright made that had me feeling a bit suspicious at the time, but David and I had spoken about it after. I brushed it off until recently, but only because when I asked David about it his answer had satisfied me…

“You know...we were at a party with the band back in the 90s. I think it was just after the last album they did together. They were all drinking and reminiscing, and the keyboardist, you know, Richard...he said something like ‘Dave, do you remember when you and Maisie went…’ and then he didn’t finish his sentence. He just stopped dead in the middle of the sentence, and then I looked over at David and I noticed the look he was giving him, and it was a look like I’d never seen him give anybody. His eyes got real wide, his mouth was set in a straight line, and I could see one of his temples throbbing. It was insane; I’ve never seen anything like it. And then Richard said, ‘oh, I forget. Doesn’t matter.’, and the matter was dropped.”

“Really?,” Ivy inquires, but it isn’t a curious ‘really’, it’s more like an astounded ‘really’. Like a woman who’s always prepared for the worst when it comes to men, and I’d imagine that’s because she hasn’t been as lucky as I am to have a loving and devoted husband.

“Yeah…”

“And you asked him about it, I hope?”

“I did,” I start to say, and I take a deep breath as I get ready to continue on. I am starting to feel really anxious thinking about this now. It feels like there’s something I don’t know. “I asked him who Maisie was. He told me it was a girl he had a six month fling with in the 70s, and that it ended badly, and that he doesn’t like to talk about her.” 

“A six month fling, hm? A fling meaning nothing more than sex?”

“I’d imagine. I’m not sure how a fling ends so badly that you can’t speak about the person, but I saw no reason at the time not to believe him. Do you think...I mean...do you think it’s possible that he’s looking this woman up online?”

Ivy picks up her set of cheap, disposable wooden chopsticks with her delicate, long fingers with polished red nails, and as she starts to eat she motions for me to do the same with a wave of her hand. She purses her red lips after swallowing her first bite, and rolls her baby blue eyes up to the ceiling. None of my friends have become as cynical or as bitter as she has with age. Maybe she wasn’t the right one to get advice from. She’s probably going to have a much more pessimistic view of the situation than anyone else might. With another bite of food, and yet another swallow, she finally prepares to speak. I brace myself to hear words I might really not like. 

“Do I think it’s possible?,” she says after a few drawn out moments. Her tone is unmistakably sour: her opinion of men is very obvious from the way she speaks about every single one of them who isn’t Mike Lennon, a man who’s gone on to become the chief of police in their old hometown. “I more than think it’s possible. I think it’s likely.” 

I want to eat, but all of a sudden I’m not hungry. I try to keep in mind that Ivy, as I said, is not the most objective person ever when it comes to issues of the heart. She’s become very jaded from all the years of living in an arranged marriage that’s brought her nothing but pain and regret, and so maybe what looks like infidelity to her may just seem like a coincidence to another person.

“There’s more than one Maisie in the world, though. It’s not a common name, but it’s not so rare that there’s only one of them, either.” 

“You’re right, but if my husband wouldn’t discuss a woman with me and then was looking up a woman by the same name I’d suspect they were one and the same. To be honest, I’d have been very unhappy with being told he didn’t want to talk about her. He should tell you everything about his past.”

“Does your husband know about Mike?”

That’s enough to make her eyes go wide, and she drops the piece of shrimp she’s holding in between her chopsticks.

“You know he does. You know he knows everything. He just doesn’t care.” 

“Either way, I mean…”

“Look, Kim, you wanted my opinion. My opinion, and you are free to take it or leave it, is that your husband isn’t telling you everything about this person, and that the journalist and the old ‘fling’ or so he says, are indeed the same person. I think you should find that keyboardist and you should ask him.”

“Richard? I have no idea how to reach him without asking David, and then he’s going to know something’s going on. I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking. David isn’t the kind of man to keep secrets.”

“All men are the kind of men to keep secrets. It doesn’t matter who they are, or what they’re like, or how nice they are to you or how many parties they throw you for your birthday. All men keep secrets.”


	59. Roger - Cambridge, 1969 - Ravenwood Meadows - Outside the Barn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger regains his memory, and he is suffering from profound shock and disbelief.

_Just what have I gone and done now?_

_How did I get here? What kind of an oddball getup am I wearing? Where the fuck are we? And why…_

_God, why… fucking why was I kissing her? How? How could that have ever come to be? I’ve never kissed her since the night that I threw her out. That was the first time that I really tried to show her how I felt, and back then she’d evaded me, put on a sweet little outfit, primped her hair and marched out the door to go cry in the arms of my ex-boyfriend. But somehow, and I am unable to find anything to fill in the space between where we were then and where we’ve found ourselves now. Nothing at all seems to make any kind of sense. All of a sudden I woke with a start with the love of my life...with her lips pressed against my own, my hand cupping her soft, rosy powdered cheek, and my other arm grasping firmly at her waist, and I’ve never been so shocked in my life as I am today._

_I don’t even know what the hell just happened there, or how anything like that could have ever happened. I thought this kind of shit only happened in books. I feel like I’ve lost an entire string of time, like time has just moved on without me yet somehow I’ve still been experiencing it, but I had to have been somewhere during all that, yes? I had to have been doing something the entire time, but what? Where exactly have I been? I don’t understand anything at all, and it’s infuriating. Everything is so fucking sudden, and I hate things that are sudden with the entirety of my earthly being. It is one of the worst things that can happen to someone, suddenness._

_The entire timeline of these events feels like a whirlwind out in the ocean, and I’m stuck on a boat out there all on my lonesome, waiting silently and with resignation for the tide to toss me over and push me too far down to make it up in time. I’m liable to choke. My lungs are liable to burst._

_I came to, or whatever, right as our lips touched. It was like magic, really, like Snow White or something. True love’s kiss... I must have been doing something right, or at least I thought, until I felt her tense up like a cornered cat ready to strike at its predator. God, it was such a hellacious and mortifying experience to be so close to her, and to have her prepare to strike at me. I could sense clearly that she was getting ready to push me away, but I feared I wouldn’t be able to stop if she did. I felt so enraptured by the feeling of our lips pressed together that if she had tried to fight me off I may have subdued her. I may not have let her go. It’s hard to say whether or not I would have relented, let her escape. I’ve been waiting far, far too long for the touch of her lips. But I saw we were in public, surrounded by people, it’s a miracle David and Cora hadn’t bull rushed us, and I realised that refusing to relent would surely catch the attention of the others, and that she likely wouldn’t fall to my passion as I dream she would._

_And so I broke away and ran like a prey animal in an instinctive, frantic escape, much like she had prepared to strike me to escape from me, but I was escaping to protect both her and myself...she was trying to escape because she hates me. My legs carried me further than I ever thought I could go, and at a pace I never believed was even possible for a human being to run, much less myself. And the shock of it all...the utter fucking shock of waking up from what appears to be a very long term dream only to be kissing the only woman I’ve ever wanted, but can never have...and of not knowing at all where all the fucking time had gone or what I was doing...I could see no other option than to bolt.._

_Life seems to hit me with one strange, ghastly curveball after another, doesn’t it? Smack right in the center of my face, ready to topple me over and bludgeon me to death at any time, but somehow like a strong old bamboo tree, I never break. A bamboo tree is probably a hell of a lot more pleasant than I am, though._

_My stomach is completely and utterly ill; I’ve just finished about a minute of straight vomiting. It didn’t last nearly as long as I thought it might; sometimes these episodes can last for a god awful long time. Three or four minutes is possibly the record, although there could be times where I’ve blacked out and don’t remember, who knows. Apparently I’m rather good at blacking out and not remembering things, so it isn’t hard to believe._

_With an arm propped up desperately against the cool, damp smelling old wood of this barn I’m breathing heavy, trying to regain my composure after having just fucking spewed my guts everywhere. I’m going to have to go home, you know? I can’t go back in there having vomited like this, they’ll all smell it on me, and it’s all down my cheap costume suit. Do you know what it’s like to remember absolutely nothing about where you are, and what got you there? At one moment I’m at this same weird old farm during the day doing some autumn thing with everyone...picking apples. Maisie didn’t want to talk to me even though I tried so, so hard to talk to her about something that I knew she’d have something interesting to say about. I remember when...when I saw her reading it for the first time, and I picked it up one day and read the dust jacket, and as soon as she was done I tucked it away in my wardrobe. She’d barely even noticed it was gone until she went through her things that I took hours to fold and pack neatly in a suitcase for her. A Louis Vuitton thing she saw somewhere and had to have, so we threw out my old ratty one that she’d been using for when we had to travel. I folded each and every piece of clothing she owned and stuffed it into that suitcase, and put all her other things into some boxes I had (although I’d kept a few things … I should not have said that I folded every piece of clothing she owned, because that is a lie. I have quite a few pieces of clothing that she has no idea went missing. I couldn’t part with them.) All while she and my ex boyfriend were out fucking without me._

_Forgive me. It’s entirely too hard to keep my mind on the current... situation... when I’m trying to figure all of this madness out. My mind is battling itself, basically. I’ve got one side that’s like the German side...all hot with passion and desire, with madness and horrified by the potential loss of control. But on the other side, we’ve got the English...I am horrified by the loss of structure, and logical enough to realise that perhaps my longing can wait while I put my life back together. But the battle is raging like a dogfight, everywhere there’s bits of me just diving and spiraling at one another, and I feel split dramatically between the two. I’m not sure who will go down first._

_The events of that day of apple picking are the last thing that I remember. After that it’s all a rather hazy blur. If there was something after that I have no recollection of it._

_And now I’m back out here, leaning against a barn wearing a vampire costume after kissing Maisie, making a mad dash out of the room, and vomiting the entire contents of my life out. It’s the most dreadful, wretched fucking thing I’ve ever felt in my life that I can remember (except for perhaps the last time this happened.) I can see all of my orange, chunky puke gathered in a puddle in the grass that’s spattered with tan, soft piles of dirt. I know that whenever I vomit like this… you know, all of a sudden, it’s because I don’t know what else to do in whatever the situation is. I’m quite literally lost for any other way to react to whatever’s gone on that’s set it off. It’s an instant response to a very draining, or very embarrassing, or very sudden situation. (I already mentioned I hate anything sudden, I hope.) The whole thing was very draining, but it was certainly also embarrassing and very sudden. To think she let me close enough to kiss her at all...how did that happen? I wonder what I could have done right to even get near her enough that I could have pulled that kind of a thing off. If she hadn’t fought me away before it even got to that point...could she have liked it? Did I feel her tremble a bit beneath my fingertips when I opened my eyes?_

_It was out of this world: the electric, magnetic, euphoric feeling that I had when I woke up and found our lips were touching. It’s as if on one hand I was on standing on top of the world as soon as I felt her velvet lips dancing with mine, and the way it felt to have her body wrapped up in my arm, but then on the other hand when I felt her body stiffen I knew that I must have fucked up somehow, but I have no idea what I could have done wrong. It was like she was succumbing to rigor mortis, or something. That’s how stiff she got when I kissed her. She went completely rigid and I thought I caught her balling her hand into a fist to punch me when I first came to and took stock of everything, but I can’t be sure. Nothing at all is clear to me; If I hadn’t mentioned it already I have absolutely no idea at all where I am. Have I been on a bender? Is it possible? I don’t drink that much, do I?_

_Yeah, fuck, I do drink that fucking much. A shot here, a swig there, a small sip here...I do drink that much. On and off throughout the day sometimes._

_Whatever._

_Finally I’m able to calm my breathing after a grueling moment of -haaaaaa- and -oooh- and -aahhhh-, for from the running to the spewing I’ve only just regained my ability to take full breaths. For fuck’s sake it was like I’d drowned, or something._

_I’ve got to stand up now. I’ve got to actually stand up and figure myself out, and have a cigarette, and go home. I can’t stay here, are you kidding me? I’ll walk home from here, I don’t care. It’s not that far out of town. Maybe an hour’s walk. Or more, I don’t know. Who the hell am I kidding? I’m not walking home from here in this bizarre, sad state I’m in. I’m wearing a cape, by the way. An actual black satin cape. And where did I get this cheap suit? Who convinced me to wear this? How could I ever have been talked into wearing something like this???? It’s hard to get me to wear anything but t-shirts and denim trousers._

_I’m not even sure if I’m fully conscious, and it sort of makes me laugh in a way. Nothing in this timeline makes any kind of sense. I lose an inordinate amount of time, and my life is all but turned upside down in a rather profound way when I come to and find myself in the situation I was in. One begins to wonder how much of time is a reality, and how much of it is an abstraction?_

_It’s like there’s one snowball rolling down a ski slope, but it keeps picking up so much snow that it’s becoming so immense it could eventually turn into an avalanche and ruin everything in its path, and everything in this avalanche’s path is my life, and my sanity, and my heart._

_I tear the stupid cape off and throw it on the ground in a ball, and grind it into the dirt with the heel of this very pricey leather shoe Cora bought me which I never wear. The feeling of the satin against my hand was nauseating me even further. I must look a very mad fright to anyone who can see me right now, which it does not seem there are any... Gollum, I bet. I often wonder if people think I remind them of Gollum when I get this way. Thank god I’m alone. I couldn’t bear it if someone were here watching me make such a jackass out of myself. If I’ve been lucky in any way it’s that when I have meltdowns like these I am usually alone. Not...always...but most of the time._

_Maisie saw me through one or two vomiting episodes when we were together. I’d get bad news, or have a fight with Syd, or whatever and that...and I’d spew into the toilet and she’d hold my hair back. And she did it...she did it in St. Tropez, too. God, if I could go back to that night when she washed my hair, and I thought before she came that I’d surely drank myself to death this time... I’d force my way through that conversation and tell her everything. I’d lay myself bare there in that bathtub where she knows she has me at my most vulnerable, and I’d hope for the best._

_I bury my head in my stinking hands, not giving a shit about getting the foul odour or any puke in my hair because I’m not going back into that party for any reason, even to fetch anyone to drive me home. There’s no reason at all to let myself be seen this way by other people. I’ll wait out here for someone or I’ll walk home._

_I don’t even know what the hell I did with my hair, anyway. It’s all stuck in one place, and it’s like, sprayed black, I think it’s been spray painted. Did Cora really spray paint my hair? Some black stuff comes off of it when I run my fingers through it. What in the hell am I doing dressed as Dracula of all things? Was Maisie dressed as Dorothy? (She looked so god damned cute as Dorothy. Whoever had that idea is a genius.) What the fuck was all that? I have to be in some sort of a coma or something, or a lucid dream. This is all so wild._

_Now that all of the vomit has finally all left me, and I’m standing like a human again instead of crouching like fucking Smeagol, I fiddle around in my pocket for my cigarettes and lighter. Unfortunately I find I only have cigarettes. No lighter, just cigarettes. Fuck, I could really use a god damned cigarette right now, for fuck’s sake. After everything I’ve just gone through in less than five minutes? Nothing would be better for me to do alone right now than to smoke just one cigarette, but no, of course not. Of course I couldn’t even get one thing going my way. I’m even denied the dignity of a lighter to light my own cigarette. As if feeling Maisie go rigid in my arms wasn’t enough...as if knowing instinctively that she was about to hit me wasn’t enough...no cigarette, either. No memory, no Maisie, no cigarette. Sounds about right._

_All of a sudden there’s a tiny pixie’s hand tapping impatiently against my arm: a ‘quick, let’s get this over with’ sort of tap. I vault three feet into the air and do all I can upon landing not to slip and fall on my ass in front of whoever this other person is...this strange fucking phantom of a person who’s managed to sneak up on me._

_“For fuck’s sake, I thought I was alone!,” I scream before I open my eyes, “Are you insane? Who the fucking hell are you?”_

_I don’t care if I’m yelling so loud I stop the whole party. What am I kidding? They wouldn’t stop the party for me. Nobody would ever stop a party for me. I’m nothing to any of these people, anyway. They couldn’t even hear me over that music with how loud it is. And who made the decision to hire this band? A chick singer? Really?_

_I could fucking kill whoever this asshole is. They are well out of order coming here and scaring me like that._

_I open my eyes, and I inhale deeply to calm myself so I don’t hit them as I watch the moonlight spill over a wide eyed, haunted, gaunt little ivory face. Two huge, spooked emerald green eyes and a pointed little face littered with a generous sprinkling of freckles. Ginger hair gone wild everywhere, falling around her like she’s got Hellfire on her, but nothing about this one says ‘demon’. No, this one is a ghost. This one’s some kind of a spirit._

_“Hey, stop your drinkin’, yeah? The spewin’ and all, it’s right disgsustin’. You make yourself look a real mess that way, and it happens all the time. Take the lighter, will you?,” comes a high-pitched spooky little Irish voice from a tiny, thin, almost boyish body._

_I don’t think I’ve ever heard that little ginger ghoul say two words before, but now she’s speaking like this to me? Who the fuck does she think she is? There’s barely any variance in her tone. She’s very monotone. I’d never noticed. I look over at her, observe her in all her ethereal weirdness, and stand with one arm resting on my hip. I’m slouching again, I can tell. I’ve been trying not to do that, but I’ll worry about that later._

_“J-jane?,” I can’t help but spit out in disbelief. Of all the people? When does Jane decide to come out of her own little world and give someone else a fucking reality check? That batty fucking bird doesn’t even know what reality is herself. Always off somewhere else, she is._

_“Yeah, it’s me. Take the lighter already.”_

_“What…”_

_She shoves the lighter into my hands, and then she pulls her arm away and awkwardly holds it behind her back. She evaluates me, staring into my fucking soul with those big green satellites in her face, seeing parts of me I don’t think she should. She’s on another level. I really and truly believe that when she stares into my eyes it’s because she’s noticed what I really am, and she’s not afraid. No one has ever looked at me like they knew every secret I’ve ever kept before, not until now. I don’t know if I respect her, or if I want to kill her to make sure she doesn’t spill to everyone, and it terrifies me to even have had the thought. What type of a monster am I?_

_“You know, I have to say somethin’. I really think you’re much better off this way, without your memory. I think you’re a lot nicer to be around when you’re like this. You’re a right prat most days, you know. I’m not saying this to be mean or anything but the past few weeks you’ve been out of your head I have liked you quite a bit better.”_

_“I...what?”_

_“Oh. Have you woken up, and I’ve just said that to you? Oh, dear. Well...you can keep the lighter, if you want. I’ve got more of the same kind at home. I collect them. Anyway, I’m just going to be going now.”_

_“Wait...wait, can you explain? Can you explain what you mean?”_

_“Okay, if you want me to.”_

_“I do want you to, Jane. That’s why I asked.”_

_“I know, it’s just that I like to be sure. You lost your memory a few weeks back. Fell off a horse lookin’ at David and Maisie like you seem to do sometimes, but it probably wasn’t the best idea on a horse. And ever since then you’ve been different, I guess. You’ve been yourself, but not really. Anyway, I’m going to go now. That’s all you asked me to tell you. I hope you get it all sorted out. G’night!”_

_She skips off into the night like a will-o-the-wisp in an enchanted forest, appearing to a weary traveler and slipping away in the next second before any more information can be gathered. That one is fascinating; I wonder what Rick sees in her. Anyhow I seem to have gotten myself into quite a situation, whatever it is, and now that I’ve got my cigarette lit and I can think, finally, I realise the full weight of what’s going on here:_

_I’ve somehow gone about losing my memory in a horse related accident (what the hell was I doing on a horse? I’m terrified of horses). Probably fell off it or something, knowing me. So I’ve been walking around the past number of weeks with a whole different personality, and somehow this other person was tolerable enough to Maisie to not only be dancing with her, but also to have been able to get close enough to kiss her. Even if she didn’t want it to get there, it had, hadn’t it? She’d really been with me._

_And according to Jane I’ve been behaving better, which means perhaps everyone liked me more. That’s a shame. I’d like to be liked as I am, not have to get into some terrible accident and lose all sense of myself in order to be liked by other people. I must be pretty intolerable if it takes something like this for not only Jane to talk to me, but also for Maisie to be dancing with me like that._

_Do you know what the worst part about all this is: or at least the worst part about this is right now before I’ve had to deal with any fallout from any decisions I apparently made without consenting to? The worst part about this is absolutely that I will never likely have any memory of what led up to that moment. I’ll never get to really know what happened, because I’ll be damned to hell if I ever mention that to her ever. I’ll never know what blissful feelings and sensations led up to that kiss. And she’ll be happier for it, believe me. I’ve really gone and embarrassed her again, then, haven’t I? It’s sort of getting to be a habit._

_What was she even doing with me, anyway? This is perhaps the worst feeling of all right now: something I did was right, but what? I wonder if I’d ever be able to replicate it. If I could somehow manage to recollect what I had done there to get her to submit enough to kiss me...could I repeat it? Could I ensnare her?_

_And what of what Jane said, anyhow? That I’d been a lot more fun in the past week, that she’d liked me quite a bit more? Have I really been so intolerable all this time, do you think...I without a doubt have been. I’ll answer for you: make it easier on both of us. I have been that intolerable all this time._

_God, the fucking gig. I’ve had almost no rehearsal and we’re leaving …. When the hell are we leaving?_

_The thought dawns on me that we may have already played our tour dates, and I may very well have actually missed them. God help us if that were the case. When was the gig?_

_The first gig is the first week of November._

_It’s rather cold out, and they’ve got this whole affair with the Halloween vibe going on. So we can’t have left yet. Thank god. At least I haven’t fucked it up already, and at least it’s got to be like a week or so that I can rehearse so it’s not awful._

_Boston, first. Yes, Boston._

_I was gonna leave Cora home._

_Cora…_

_Oh, fuck, speak of the devil. There’s Cora. I think It’s her, anyway (based on the way she’s flailing her arms about upon seeing me), but I don’t really know for sure because whatever it is doesn’t even really look like anyone I know. Her waist is impossibly tiny. What in the hell did Cora do to it, if that’s even Cora?_

_“Roger Oh, Roger, dear!,” she bellows like a screeching governess after a wayward schoolboy off to cause trouble._

_Well, I suppose that answers that question._

_What am I to do about Cora? I hadn’t even thought about the possibility that she’d come here looking for me._

_“Yes, I’m here,” I spit through my teeth, hissing at her. I can’t believe this; I haven’t even gotten a chance to completely maintain my composure and she’s already here to bother me. Can’t get a lighter without having a little crazy person jump out of a bush at me, can’t get a minute to calm myself without Nanny Cora coming flying after me like a mama bird._

_“Oh, my darling.” she coos as she throws her long, willowy arms around me._

_I begin to think that perhaps her touch could comfort me, but my optimism was unfounded. It isn’t at all comforting: in fact, I feel rather smothered by her._

_“No, no. You don’t need to … you don’t need to hug me like this. I’m fine, Cora.” And then she doesn’t let go, so I pull her arms off of me, and it takes everything I have not to turn and run. I don’t know how I’m even supposed to face her now, and for so many reasons. What if she saw it? I suppose if she had she wouldn’t seem so warm to me._

_“Don’t be silly, darling, really. Of course I do,” she whispers to me with her posh little voice as she presses her lips against my cheek._

_I cringe when I feel the grease of her pasty black lipstick against my face, likely leaving a stain. I’m able to pull myself away and when I stare into her eyes I notice the spark fleeing from them. Her gaze is clouded over, her radiant smile sort of drooping at the sides while her mouth remains so wide it’s almost comical. It’s as if someone just turned the corners of her big wide smile upside down._

_“What happened, Cora?, I spout as I finally erupt after keeping it at bay for quite a few more moments than I expected to._

_This leads her to overflow with loving compassion for me a bit longer, so I’m not sorry I did it. She really didn’t need to stand in for who I am pretending she is, but she chose to. I’m very grateful for that._

_“You had a fall, that’s all. A bad fall off a horse. You just lost a bit of time, is all.”_

_Her voice has faltered. She seems to be quite a bit less jubilant and encouraging than she was a moment ago. Perhaps she too is disappointed to see that I’ve reverted to myself. That should feel worse than it does. The real tragedy of the entire situation is that clearly, Maisie will be saddened to see me return to myself, too. She liked something about me when I was acting like someone else, but now that person is gone, and so whatever it is...whatever quality I had that drew her...it is forever lost to me, and I will live forever with the knowledge that Maisie liked me...except it wasn’t truly me that she liked._

_I squeeze Cora tighter, trying to imagine that she’s got a bit more meat on her body than she does, and when I can force myself to buy into the illusion fully I’m transported right back to that moment I awoke and I felt her lips against mine. I knew immediately it was her lips by the way they felt, and I knew her by that cocoa scent that hovers around her, her body lotion. I’m wondering...what if it had gone differently? And I want so desperately to get lost in this moment, but Cora keeps on pulling me back into reality and ruining the entire charade for me._

_My blood starts to boil with rage. This isn’t what I want. I wanted to be left alone to fucking process everything and to be able to live down my humiliation just enough to then have to go and deal with the consequences of whatever else I’ve done while I’ve been ‘away’. Looking at Cora alone is enough to push me right now even though she looks incredible. It’s not the way she looks...I just don’t want it to be her, and I want her to respect that, and I want her to leave._

_“Look, I’d like us to go home, Cora. But I really need a moment to myself to be alone. Could you just please go get ready to leave?”_

_My words have shot from me as if from a pistol before I’ve even had the chance to stop and consider them. There’s a pause...a very, very pregnant pause, and she slaps her arms to her sides, chuckles at me, throws me a smile that could kill it stabs me so hard, and marches back into the barn. I’m going to have to make that up to her later. That was wrong._

_Still, all I wanted was to be alone…_


	60. Maisie - Cambridge, May 2006 - Syd and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie comes home from a visit with Cora to find Syd enjoying the company of Rosemary and her lawyer, Barney Golden. Something is suspicious, but what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For any of you who get who I'm parodying here it is a critique that comes from my personal opinions and including this character, Barney, was a way to channel that frustration I felt without pushing my opinions on other people in my life.
> 
> If you don't agree with this characterization that's totally okay but please don't stop reading - he only gets one more scene in this volume lol

Coffee with Cora went well today. I’m really enjoying our weekly cafe outings, and I know that Syd enjoys the free time to be alone, or go to Rosemary’s, or take walks. It’s been good for us to get some time to ourselves, and it’s just so great to have my Cora back. I feel like I’m 21 years old again: I’m in love like it’s the first time, and I’m spending days sitting and doing nothing with my best friend all over again. I’m slowly beginning to realize that I’ve tried to live my life never getting old, but getting old really is getting young again if you let it be that way. So much of my youth was pain, and though not nearly all of it was bad...not by far, in fact I’ve had a great deal of fun in my life both in youth and older age...but something about getting older has meant that the fun I’m having is less marred by my past mistakes and past trauma. I feel free of all those pressures to keep losing weight and I take such good care of myself FOR MYSELF and not for the benefit of those others who will look at me throughout my day and my life. I am no longer plagued by nightmares visited upon me by the one I’ve forgiven, the one who life and mental illness stole from me and from everyone who loved him. 

The drive both ways was also pleasant. Sometimes it’s nice to drive alone because I can listen to whatever I want on the radio. Syd’s very particular about music, and so there’s a lot I just can’t listen to when he’s around, including The Sisters Of Mercy, and so I listened to them today on the drive to and from the cafe Cora and I visit each week. I missed the heartbeat of the music, Andrew’s droning, haunted baritone, and the chill of the way he sings the weird, oddly symbolic lyrics. So the drive alone would be worth it; seeing Cora is just a very nice bonus. It’s probably the other way around, though. 

So now I’m pulling up into the driveway, and I see Rosemary’s car (which I was expecting), but I see a second car next to hers: an old, dented, poorly maintained Buick LeSabre. Beige, like the owner didn’t even care what color their car came in, which is fair. Not everyone is lucky enough to be demanding about it. There’s a whole smattering of left wing bumper stickers all over the back of the car, seems to be a teenager. If I didn’t know Roger was very serious about cars I’d think he had come to visit. Ugh, I shudder at the thought. Syd and I would really have an issue if I found out that Roger had shown up here without my permission. Still, though, I wonder who this is. A friend of Rosemary’s? Doesn’t seem like the type of person that Rosemary would be friends with. There’s no way she’d hang out with somebody who had a bumper sticker saying “Keep Your Jesus Out Of My Law Books”.

I knock on the doorframe as I enter, trying to alert everyone in the house to my presence, but it doesn’t quite seem to work: no one responds. When I enter the house I set my purse down on the little shelf next to the door I hear a deep, gravelly old man’s New York (probably Brooklyn or The Bronx) accented voice coming from the living room. No matter what this guy says it sounds like he’s yelling at people. He’s not being aggressive with Syd and Rosemary, but it sure sounds like he is with the way he’s badgering them like an angry old grandpa that’s got no time for anyone. I hear Rosemary kind of backing him up…’yes, Roger, he’s right’, and ‘Barney has a great idea’...as he mentions something about ‘sole beneficiary’, and ‘money belongs in the family, son’. Now I’m incredibly suspicious. I don’t even want the money. I really just want to give it all to Ian and Jill and their baby when I get it, but I’m leaving the money to Rosemary with a stipulation that she use it for Emily to go to college, or enter a training program. Or to go to therapy for having Rosemary as a grandmother (but with her parents … she’d be fine, probably…), but anyway. She wants the money so badly she’s taking advantage of my husband to avoid honoring his wishes, and use all the money to do god knows what. 

I slide into the room, not bothering to try to make my presence known any further because now if I walk in unannounced and put the fear of god into Rosemary I won’t feel bad. Not if it’s what I suspect it could be, and it’s very difficult to think that it could possibly be anything else.

I’m immediately suspicious of this Barney guy. It was actually instant: I looked at him. I looked at the way he looked at Syd: disdainful. Impatient. Humoring. Refusing to be direct. He looked at him like he was an insect, or a freak of nature. His eyes were condescending, hateful, full of false pity. This guy was trying so hard to manipulate Syd, to talk to him like the wise old father that Syd had stolen from him, that I all but instantly felt it. There’s no way those eyes are the eyes of a wise, loving father. Those are the eyes of a charlatan: the devious, shifty eyes of a man using compassion as a veneer for something a lot more self interested. I know what this guy’s about, and I don’t even have to know anything else about him to know. A lawyer is a lawyer for a reason, after all.

“Hey, all. How are you?,” I interject, and I check out the room full of people in front of me. There’s Syd and Rosemary sitting on the couch together, behind the coffee table which has a pewter tray sitting on top of it with two cups of tea and one cup of completely black coffee. Judging by the look of this dude sitting across from them in Syd’s recliner with his legs spread in a way that seems really imposing and entitled, if not purposely vulgar, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he drank black coffee. There’s sometimes a personality that goes along with drinking black coffee. You know who else liked black coffee? Roger Waters. Roger Waters always liked black coffee. That’s what I’m talking about. 

Barney’s got this messy white bush of hair on top of his head. It looks like he just never stops to think about what he looks like when he rolls out of bed in the morning. Kinda makes me wonder if he brushes his teeth or if he just leaves the house with his mouth dirty. His beige brown suit jacket and pants are wrinkled, and this may not be the first time he’s worn them this week. He’s got on these rectangular shaped wire rimmed glasses, and the color of his stunning blue eyes are the only thing about him that strikes me as being anything near pleasant: or at least they would strike me as pleasant if I didn’t feel them judgmentally roaming over me for some weird reason. It’s not the look he gave Syd, but I can tell it’s not the first he’s heard of me.

“Oh, Bernard, this is Roger’s wife, May,” Rosemary says with a suspiciously cheerful tone to her voice.

“Barney, please. Pleasure,” Bernard grunts at me without even looking in my direction. “Now if we could uh...get back to business?”

“Nonsense,” Rosemary replies as she stands and offers me her seat next to Syd. “Let’s get acquainted, shall we?” 

Rosemary leaves for a second, only to return with one of our dining room chairs to sit on. She sits with her legs pressed together, in stark contrast with her friend Bernard, who’s still got his old chicken legs spread as wide as they can go. She looks directly at me, her sharp brown eyes piercing mine. ‘Your move’, they say. 

“Hello, Barney,” I let out through gritted teeth. I don’t like the way I feel when I look at this guy at all. I really think something’s up with him. It isn’t like when I came to discover what Rosemary was really like under the mask. It didn’t take any time with Barney before my bells started going off.

I let my sentence trail off because I’m not really sure what to say to this guy. There’s a part of me that doesn’t trust Rosemary to bring people into Syd’s house, but I try to brush that off because she’s his sister, and as much as I hate her I know how much she loves him. She wouldn’t put him in a position to be preyed on by somebody. He’s probably just some cranky old man, maybe a man she’s seeing. If we can believe Rosemary would ever try to meet a man...not that she’s under any obligation, but she doesn’t seem to enjoy anyone’s company really.

“Bernard is my barrister. He’s got this great project going on downtown, a rec center for the youth. Don’t you, Bernard?”

“Rosemary, please. Barney. It’s a travesty what the children and teens in those neighborhoods live through,” he begins, and I imagine he’s shaking his fist when I hear the force behind his voice. “Drugs, crime, sexual violence, and coming home to an empty house. Unfortunately the establishment in this town doesn't want to give us any funding. Until we can get full funding from the government we cannot afford to be anything but a simple downtown center that can barely keep the lights on.”

Makes me wonder how much actual work he’s put in for the rec center if nothing but ‘full government funding’ is able to barely keep the lights on in Cambridge, a pretty upper middle class city full of philanthropic, wealthy liberals who give to nonprofits and charities as often as they’re able. It also makes me wonder how much work he’s actually putting into it because I don’t think the local government would deny all funding. Why does it need ‘full government funding’ in order to be anything but a dump? 

“So … are you looking for a donation? Is that why you came?”

Somehow, I’m doubting he’s really here for a donation, but we’ll see.

“Bernard was just here to talk about the will,” Syd pipes up from beside me. He places his hand on mine, and I turn to give him a soft peck on the lips. I taste his cinnamon flavored lip balm: he must have just put it on after I called him to tell him I was coming home. I could kiss him until it all came off, but I restrain myself, trying to be as appropriate as I possibly can. “He wanted me to make sure I made Rosemary…” 

All of a sudden the air in the room is so heavy I can feel my head being squeezed in by the pressure: it’s exhilarating, but it’s exhausting too. Anything could happen right now: in a matter of minutes both Barney and Rosemary’s eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. They look at one another in a mutual low-key panic; it seems obvious to me that they’re terrified of Syd saying something that they didn’t explicitly tell him not to say, but that they didn’t account for his innocence. They couldn’t have won him over anyway if they’d asked him not to tell me something. Both of them should’ve been prepared for that possibility. Clearly they’re not as crafty as they thought they were.

“Now, now, Roger. You don’t need to explain. We were just…”

I put my index finger up, and I stick my hand in the direction of Rosemary’s silver tongued mouth. Ooh, the condescension drips off of her lips like the blood of the innocent. If her tone had a smell, she’d be the nastiest skunk spray you’d ever smelled in your life. It’s so powerful that it gets into everything, and you can’t ignore it. With my lips pursed I turn my face back to Syd, and when I look upon his radiance I can’t help but smile at him. He smiles a bashful smile back at me, and my heart skips a beat when I catch his air kiss on my cheek with my hand.

“Made Rosemary what, Syd?” 

The air in the room hangs heavy, and I can notice a visible drop of sweat coming off of Rosemary’s forehead. It drips down her face with the caked on foundation (what is it with the makeup in the past few months?), pink blush and purple eyelids. It leaves a salty trail as it travels down her brow bone toward the weird, spiralling vortex of hatred that her gaze has become. There was a time I thought Rosemary Breen was just a strange old lady that made me a little uncomfortable, but was basically harmless. She seemed to be a loving, patient sister the way she fussed over Syd, but I’ve heard and seen too much now not to know better. I underestimated Rosemary. She appears to be pretty cunning.

You know how I mentioned putting the fear of God into her, though? I think I’ve done that. Thank goodness for Syd’s naivete sometimes, or else he might not have told me, and god knows what they’re trying to do here. Any legal documents that they put in front of my husband will be looked at by my personal attorney. I hope that’s the realization they’ve both come to. Neither one of us will sign anything without running it past my attorney. I don’t trust lawyers for anything they’re worth, but at least I got lucky with Amy.

“The...what was it, Rosie? Sole….bene...beneficiary! That was it. She said it’s so she can make sure my money was well spent. Barney told me that if I don’t sign it over to her it will automatically be you because you’re my...was it ‘next-of-kin’? You’re my wife, of course,” he pauses to giggle after he says that, “and Barney thinks money should stay in the family.”

“Is that so?,” I ask as I shoot a very knowing side glance directly at Rosemary in the center of her mousy little face, and reach my hand out to rest on my husband’s arm. I shake my head at her just enough that it might not be noticeable to anyone else, and I squint my eyes at her, throwing daggers into the pits in her face. I know what this cunt is up to. It’s been about the money all along, hasn’t it? The money, and the reputation, and the status. That’s why the house was a shitshow. That’s why Syd continued to eat like he always had. She lives five minutes away, and her son hasn’t needed her in years. She hasn’t worked a day in her life; after her husband passed she has been able to live on what her husband had. Rosemary is not busy. She barely has any human friends, she is not dating; she stays home all the time with her dog, or she visits us, or Syd visits her. Syd’s lifestyle and worsening health were because of neglect, and this is why. I’ve finally figured it out.

She’s just another person pimping out Syd for the price tag on who he used to be, trading his suffering for their own profit. The only people around Syd that do interviews are the ones that have no choice like David and the people who have something to gain. Of course her motivator is money. I could not dream for a second of sitting for an interview with some TV personality or author and spilling personal details about Syd to anyone who ever wanted to know about it, especially because I know how private Syd is, and how frightened he gets when he feels like people know too much. And even now when he’s so close to... when he’s in the situation that he’s in...all she can think of is money. “Rose, can I talk to you? Excuse me, please,” I say as I glance at both Syd and ‘Barney’.

“Talk to me? Whatever for?”

The tinge of fear in her shaky, prim and proper Cambridge squeak box of a mouth betrays any kind of barrier of false courage she’s trying to put up. She’s visibly rocked by my tone; I can tell by the way she tucks her little bob of hair behind one ear. The hair on her neck must be standing up, but in order to maintain the social grace that is so damn important to her she has to oblige me. If she says no she appears rude in front of Barney, and well...god forbid. It would also make her look pretty suspicious.

“Let’s just step out. Syd, Barney, we’ll be right with you.” 

Syd waves goodbye to me, and before I turn my head I watch as Barney leans in to talk to Syd. How I’d love to be a fly on that wall. When we head into the hallway I turn my attention back to Rosemary in her white Champion hoodie with a patch of a Boston terrier ironed on to the front and her dowdy capri pants with the bottoms sewn to look rolled up, patterned with some very matronly looking pink flowers. She’s wearing some orthopedic shoes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m sorry. Not fair. People really do need those. Anyway...

I stare up into her eyes, hoping I’m putting the knife right in her gut.

“What is this about, May?”

“You know what this is about, Rosemary.”

“Do I?”

“I’m pretty certain you do,” I dare her. 

“If you’re so certain, why don’t you tell me?”

“Well, if that’s how you want it, I guess I’ll just be completely direct. Why did you bring a lawyer here to talk to Syd about the will?”

“Why do you care so much? What interest is it of yours, then?”

“Sweetheart, has it dawned on you yet that when someone is married it gets a little complicated when it comes to legal matters? Did you really think I was gonna let Syd sign a form without showing it to my own attorney?”

Her face contorts into a wicked, grotesque look. She bares her teeth at me with little beady eyes stuck into snake slits. There’s flashes of furious electric lightning in her gaze: she looks feral. She sticks her finger in my face, stopping only just short of my mouth, and her jaw clenches with rage before she opens her mouth.

“That’s why I planned this for when you weren’t home,” she provokes, “You may have won this round, but don’t underestimate me again, ‘Maisie’, unless you want to find yourself...hmm, perhaps...locked right in there?”

I don’t even turn around to look at the linen closet she’s referencing. It throws me for a loop, and there’s a small part of me that I can’t control that sends a terrified jolt up and down my spine, but I know it’s not real. I know it can’t hurt me. She won’t stuff me in a closet, and Syd definitely won’t, so she can try to scare me...but if she thinks that I haven’t spent decades working on exactly how to talk myself through this type of scenario...she’s an idiot, and I’d be very sorry to have been wrong about her intelligence. 

“I have to say, ‘Rosie’, that was a surprisingly low effort move on your part. Do you not have anything better?”

“Oh, I have better. Believe me, May Wells, I have quite a lot of things I could say if given the opportunity.”

“You have the opportunity. Do you have the courage is the question I think you might want to ask yourself. Because right now would be the opportunity. You and me alone, Syd in there talking alone with Barney. I’m sure they’ll barely notice we’re gone. You have the opportunity, so are you going to take it, or are you going to be a coward?”

“I’d only give it to you if you weren’t egging me on. I don’t want to give you the satisfaction, you loose, dirty, slaggy old whore. That’s right: you’re a whore. You’re an absolute rubbish feeding whore, and you have no shame. You are not nearly good enough for my brother, and that’s why I don’t trust you with his money.”

“And I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of saying anything in response to that. But believe me, sister, I’ve got a few choice things I could pull out of my arsenal too, and you won’t be safe from it forever.”

With one more scarring, scorching look she turns her back on me in a huff and marches back into the living room.

“Bernard, we’d better be going,” I hear her announce. “I’ve just gotten a rather important call on my mobile phone, and I’ve got to get home to get some affairs in order. We’ll see you soon, Roger.”

“I’ll have Dolly fax over the forms for you to look over, Roger,” Barney announces to Syd in a very formal way, a way I wouldn’t imagine anybody talking to Syd, as he picks up his old black briefcase. He nods at me, and the two of them stampede out the door into the street. Now, that’s enough of that. 

I turn back to Syd, who’s sitting on the couch still sipping his tea. His eyes light up like lanterns when I sit down next to him, and he takes my hand. 

“I’m glad you got to meet Barney, finally,” he says. “He hasn’t been round in awhile.”

“I’m glad, too, baby.” I lean my head against his shoulder, which is growing more and more bony by the week, and I bring my hand up to rest against his chest. “What do you think of Barney?”

He strokes my hair and leans down to kiss the top of my head, and then I place a hand on his cheek and we lean in and share a long, loving and desperate kiss...the kisses we waited so long to be able to share. I wrap my arms around his neck as our lips search for one another and then rejoice in every little touch they can find when they reunite. I’m set aflame; it’s like even though we agreed to no sex I can’t quite stop thinking about it. I wonder if Syd knows I think about it almost every day, and that every time I look at him my heart flutters and my pussy tenses up. I wonder if he knows that the love I feel for him threatens to oversaturate my entire being. 

“I think Barney is pretty tops. He’s a right nasty old man sometimes, but I think that’s who he pretends to be. You know, how he appears to everyone else. I think he’s a good friend to have. He always talks to me about gardening and about his children’s project when Rosemary walks away. He says our talks are our little secret. Oops…”

“What is it?,” I ask as I rest my hand on Syd’s thigh, fighting the urge to let it creep closer to his cock. No sex. No sex. Down,girl.

“Well, it was meant to be a secret, but I’ve gone and blabbed it to you.” His eyes go wide, he looks from side to side and he shows me a very mischievous smile. “You won’t tell Rosie or Barney, will you?”

“No, baby, I promise I won’t. Your secret is safe with me.” 

“I love you so much, my Maisie. I love you to the ends of the Earth and all the way to the moon.I love you much more than I love Mr. Barney,” he adds with a grin that could disarm a royal guard.

I look at my Syd and my heart melts into a puddle of sparkly red goo. The fact that his own sister would try to manipulate him using a friendly lawyer makes this even worse. How could she do that to Syd when he’s so kind, and gentle, and innocent? How could she knowingly fuck with him to try and make sure his wishes for his own money aren’t honored? How could she fuck with him in any way? What else is there that she’s been doing all these years that I just don’t know, and is there any real way to find out? 

For now, I try to forget it all as Syd switches on the television and I relax into his arms before I start dinner. I want to treasure every moment, and every moment I think about Rosemary is a moment with Syd as he is right now...as perfect, beautiful, and luminous as he ever was...a wasted moment that when he’s gone I’ll look back and regret. So as things are...I’ll think about Rosemary and Barney another day. Right now I don’t want to think about anything but my baby.


	61. Syd - Cambridge, 1969 - Tranquil Valley Psychiatric Institution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosemary has dropped Syd off at an institution, and he has to learn to cope and to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys so a few things...
> 
> First off I noticed my view count dropped this week. I'm wondering if it was because I left you at a cliffhanger at the dance, and didn't make it clear I'd be continuing. That was a huge oversight on my part. I didn't think that anyone would best describe the act of coming out of amnesia like the man himself, so I switched perspectives, but I should have found a way to let you know. I'll remember that with scenes that do the same going forward. I hope that you guys are still enjoying and that didn't drive you off.
> 
> Second, I am gonna go down to two chapters a week now. Most of you are probably back in school/college and you don't need to devote time to reading 3 of my chapters a week now that you're busier. Plus, it's good for me because while I'm close to finishing this volume, I'm not quite there yet. I've been putting it off a bit, the ending, because it's going to be difficult to write, but I'm kinda tying up loose ends now and building up to that. I don't want to take a huge hiatus so I have enough material for you with volume 3 to keep updating once a week, so two chapters is the best for now.
> 
> I hope you guys keep coming back. The drama only turns up in Volume 3.

_Rosemary’s gone and dropped me off at some facility for nutters like myself. Tranquil Valley. Tranquil Valley. Would what that mean, really: a tranquil valley? That sounds as is if it describes something far more pleasant and colourful and interesting than life at Tranquil Valley Psychiatric Institution where I am now. If I said it’s worse than living with those people over at what’s-his-face’s house...the artist. The artist with the jackass brother and his bleeding awful friends. The ones that used to do the Very Bad Thing to me, too..._

_She didn’t even hug me goodbye, Rosemary. No she did not, and I’m all alone now. All alone, all alone. It’s not as if there are no people, or there are quite a great deal of people all strewn about here like dirty underthings. A lot of people left all alone. So I see people throughout the day, you know. Passing in the halls and such, going to the group therapies and that, but I stick to myself usually when I’m walking around here. I don’t see any sense making friends here. Some of the girls I think they like me but I think they all look like beasts...not that they look like beasts, no woman looks like that. They don’t look like beasts but they have souls of beasts. Some of the blokes like me, too, and I know because I felt a hand trying to bum me once, but I moved so fast, it was well out of order. And maybe I would have done it under normal circumstances, but they look even worse both inside and out while the women only ever look spoiled inside. The men are hideous. I’ve never seen such ghastly looking men all my life. It makes me wonder if I look so ghastly as they do. I haven’t thought to check at all; I’d not washed at all before I came here, but now I only seldom wash._

_It’s all so awful now, my life. It’s just gone right to the birds. The whole thing just...all gone. Gone with the wind: my life, my band, my girl, my fucking house that I bought with my money!!!! The first money of my own that I ever had … all of it is gone away from me now. Far away...far, far away. I have nothing anymore, not even my paintings. I don’t know, anyway, because Rosie didn’t tell me whether anyone was going to get them. Rosie didn’t even tell me I was coming here. She just left me here._

_Every day I sit on the floor by the wall with my arms scrunched around myself, trying to disappear, and I watch the other loonies passing by me. Or I listen to them go on about things in group. No one tries to make me share anymore. I don’t say anything at all. They leave me to listen, I won’t let them have a chance to record my voice. No one will have a chance to record my voice; I don’t trust David Gilmour not to steal it and use it for himself. Like he does everything else I ever fucking loved. Roger probably likes him better than me now, anyhow, even though I could never love a man better than I love him._

_Anyway, all these people … they’re all peculiar, all sort of....all sort of....sort of...oh, I don’t know. What do you think? Each and every one of them has their own sort of affliction, you know, being that we’re all here in this place, and all. So right from the off you know something is wrong with them. There’s some here that are like me, and they have their own friends, there’s some that have killed people and some that can barely talk. Some of them don’t even seem like they belong here at all. And we’re all together, on and off through the day. We all just sit around all day, and they’re right rotten to us throughout the day, the people who work here. They force you to take these capsules that take your mates out of your head so you’re left with no one to talk to anymore, and they tie you up if you get too fussy about things in this horrid Houdini device, like a … it’s sort of like a coffin. Or a mummy...a mummy. A mummy wrap, yeah. Makes one feel like something of a mummy. I don’t think I much enjoy being a mummy; I think I’ve tried to like it a few times now … but it’s never any real fun and I would like it to stop. And then … and then when they call us all names...I don’t like that. I don’t even know what we’re supposed to be doing here. And this is not even including the bits about the needles...the needles they jam into us when we are difficult. Capsules and needles and mummy wraps...that is my life now in Tranquil Valley Whatever And This And That._

_I sometimes worry that all these other people they have us in here with: these criminals and mischief makers and all those bad sorts … I see them getting very violent with some folks sometimes … roughing them up. It doesn’t really make much sense to rough someone up that wasn’t even trying to talk to you, and so I worry they may come after me as well. I stay out of their way when I can. If I have to be near them there are some times I get the shakes and so the staff knows not to make me stand or sit by them. And the nurses, too. It’s awful sometimes in here, the way the nurses sneer at you like you’re a maggot on a dead body, just crawling over whatever ooze you can find. The way they try to put their hooks into my mind...I see it. I see them; I know what they are._

_I feel as if just yesterday I had a life with a girl that I loved who was nice to me and didn’t yell and scream and make me cry, and I had a band that was getting very famous and that I enjoyed writing and playing music for...but then I stopped enjoying playing music at all when they all started to stare at me, those people in the audience. There were so many of them just staring and staring at me, yelling at me all the time. Shouting words at me, shouting song titles at me as if I was supposed to just roll along with them like a toy ducky on a string, but I would not accept that, for I am not a toy ducky on a string. When I am following somebody that way it is because I know they love me. All those ‘fans’, they don’t love me. They’ve never loved me. All they want is for me to give them something: singing words or guitar tunes, art, sex, a solitary moment of hearing me say ‘hello’. Not one of them has wanted anything -for- me. None of them have ever taken care of me or been there when I felt broken. Not one of them has kissed my cheek or gave me a bath or let me be authentically myself. I do not understand wanting even a small fraction of fame anymore._

_The ballroom and club scene was much too noisy, and there were far too many people there for my liking, ever. That was why I always had to leave the room at parties...after playing those gigs all the time I could not abide the crowds and the noises at parties for more than one more second. And now the whole idea of writing a song or playing an instrument just seems old and dead: crunchy like autumn leaves when one walks on them. And I had friends, too. Everybody thought I was so sociable but I was already stoned by the time I was socialising with them, and then when it all wore off I just had to get away. I think this started when I was very young, this running away from talking with other people, but it never felt like too much until I got famous._

_Just yesterday I had this sort of a joyous, fun, magical lifestyle, but one day that all stopped. It kind of stopped at first when I got with Maisie, because she’s not the sort to go out and party, really, and I felt safe being myself with her. I don’t like to go out and party either. But even that came to a screeching halt that morning I woke up and my mind was in pieces all over the floor._

_I don’t even remember what it was anymore, what the thing was that made it all go to hell the way it did when I woke up that morning. Things were very bad before my friends even came. Things were bad before I locked my best person up._

_That’s part of why I feel so lonely, though._

_I want my Maisie so bad, every day. I whine for her in the middle of the night sometimes and now I don’t have a room mate anymore. I had one, a lad who didn’t like to talk to me, either, but I kept him away throughout the night with my crying and so they moved him somewhere else and I was given a room by myself. I think it was supposed to teach me a lesson, but I much prefer it to sharing a room with another person. I wail every night that I sleep here without her. Not every night, maybe, but most nights. I cried for her so loud one night that they came and knocked me out with the stabby thing that puts cold in my veins and makes me fall asleep._

_And I do sort of want my Roger. But only if Maisie were there, too. I don’t want to be alone with Roger too long because Roger yells at me sometimes. If Maisie were there Roger would probably not yell at me. And Maisie could love us both. And we can love one another and her, too. I wish that Roger had ever let me really love him the way I wanted to. And I wish that I never did a bad thing to my Maisie, ever. Ever ever._

_But I want her, I do. I want her to come home and I want to feel safe again in her arms away from everything here. It’s so scary here. It’s all so, so scary here where I am in this...it feels like a prison with bars on the windows like it has. Like we can’t even be trusted to look out the bloody windows. I want her to hold me, and take me home, and make me her chicken soup that I liked so much and then have hot cocoa for dessert in the winter or ice cream in the summer. I miss the way she used to make food. The food here tastes like rubbish, all of it. All of it does. Terrible, rotten, tasteless food. We are lucky if there’s even salt here sometimes. The water...I avoid it at times because I think they’re putting more drugs in the water to make people sleep all the time because there are many that just do that all day and nothing else._

_It’s all too white here in this place. It smells too clean, there’s no homey smell. There’s no art on the walls or anything. It’s all just white and beige and grey on the walls and on the tile floors that hurt very much if you are ever to slip on one of them, and I do not recommend doing so. There’s beeping sounds all day just drilling, drilling, DRILLING into one’s ears and making one smack one’s head against the wall. It hurts to smack one’s head against a wall, it does. Perhaps I bled one time from doing so for a long time, but maybe I imagined that. And people do go on about nonsense here. I’ve met quite a few of Jesus so far. Perhaps that one more than any other one. Jesus must be everywhere, or something, because quite a few people seem to be under the impression that they are him. Very strange phenomenon, you know. There’s people screaming and crying, and nobody helps them. All these people in here screaming and crying including me and all they do is give us pills or fucking stow us away. Nothing feels like a home. She was my only ever real home once Father passed on. I don’t want to be afraid anymore; it feels pretty lousy to be afraid all the time, you know. I wish Maisie could come here and get me out. Especially now that my friends have all gone. Well, I don’t miss that one bloke. He was a real monster, he was. Trying to make me gouge out my own eyes. Yeah. Yeah, he was trying to make me gouge out my eyes._

_Because I can’t forget the way she looked when David pulled her out of that stupid bloody closet that I wish I could go home and smash up with an axe to get rid of it and everything that it ever made me do and everything it did to her. I can’t forget the look...the look...the...the way she looked. All her beautiful hair, it was all over her head like a messy old broom. It was all matted and sad. I can’t believe I was not brushing her hair. They wouldn’t let me brush her hair. I asked them to, they all agreed on no. Her eyes were all red and veiny and very puffy. Dull. She was so afraid. And I screamed for her but David wouldn’t stop and then she looked at me and begged him to bring her back. She still would have come back if David had let her go. But would she have been happy sitting there with me all night so I could protect her? What if she doesn’t miss me right now?_

_But I’ve been here for a few weeks now, and things seem to be perhaps just a bit clearer to me, and it becomes clear at times that I did a Very Bad Thing that time. It all happened very fast. The winds blew in one direction and I had to follow. It was a Very Bad Thing that I tell myself every day was a Very Bad Thing and from now on that is how it shall be known, as the Very Bad Thing. I don’t ever want to hear the word ‘closet’ ever again; I hope that you shall agree with this._

_This Very Bad Thing I’ve done…_

_The way she pounded on that door, and I begged them to please let me let her out, and they said no and they were controlling my body...I couldn’t fight them, and now she’s gone...and she is never ever coming back. She’s never...never, never, never ever going to come back. Because of this Very Bad Thing that I did. And they say only I did this, these doctors here, they say my friends aren’t real. That’s not true. That’s not true at all, in fact: my friends are very much real, but those dreadful doctors and nurses mock me and tell me it’s all in my head. And every day I realise more and more that my Maisie will never come home to me._

_I will never see her again._

_I’ll never hold her again or kiss her again, or touch her hair. I’ll never brush her hair or massage her shoulders or taste test her brownie batter, or draw her sketches... because she’s gone forever now. And I’ll never wake up to her making me breakfast again, or helping me go to sleep at night. It will never be another day of going to the park together and looking at the flowers, or driving to god knows where in the middle of the night and watching the landscapes so I could paint them later. She always understood that. She liked sitting there in the car with me while I looked at the way the moonlight hit the fields we’d watch, and she always told me how pretty I looked while I studied everything. Lindsay didn’t like it. Lindsay used to hit me when I stayed in the car looking for too long. Maisie didn’t ever get angry at me for it. I was so, so lucky to find a girl who didn’t get mad at me for being inspired, and I did something that was so very awful that I can never, ever look at her or talk to her or hold her again._

_The doctor here says I need to let her go, but I simply cannot do that, my friend. I simply cannot, and I will not get caught up in trying. I made Maisie a promise to always wait for her, and I have to keep it, even if she never ever does come back I won’t give up hope. And I am not capable of looking at anyone else anymore and seeing anything even close to a fraction of what I see in my princess when I look at her. I don’t know what it was, but she said she noticed me right away too. I hope that she was telling the truth, but I don’t mind if she wasn’t. It was very pleasant to have someone to love me, but I don’t have that anymore. I don’t even have my friends._

_I thought my Rosie loved me, but she must not, I guess. It’s pretty obvious to me that anyone who could just drop their brother off at a place like this without even giving them a hug does not love their brother very much, or they would not have been so cold. I’ve never seen Rosie so cold before, although she was always very defensive and sort of standoffish. What if Rosemary has friends, too, and they’re telling her I’m going to hurt her? I wouldn’t hurt her, but I suppose after what I did to my Maisie she doesn’t really know that for sure. She just dropped me off like a burden, a bag of rubbish thrown on top of a heap. A thing to be rid of._

_Perhaps I’m nothing but a Thing. A Thing to use, a Thing to make others money, a Thing to be screamed at and yelled at and lured and fucked. A Thing to be rid of. A Thing to be...belched out of the machine. How could anyone love me if I were only a Thing? I suppose now I may never know again how it feels to be loved as more than a Thing._

_I don’t believe in a god, really, but please pray for me if you do and you think it will help me._


	62. David - Sussex, England, April 2006 - David And Kim's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David and Kim share intimate moments, but it isn't the same.
> 
> NSFW

Kim’s in the bathroom getting ready to come to bed. I’m trying to get into a novel, and failing at it as usual: trying to pass the time by desperately clinging to something that can distract me, but I’ve never found reading to be especially engaging. It’s just too difficult to keep your eyes on the page and your mind connecting with what you’re reading for so long. If I could listen to books perhaps I’d do that, but for now this is what I’ve got. It’s a pretty cliche’ detective novel, to tell you the truth, nothing far too interesting. Kim recommended it to me, actually, after she began to suspect that something wasn’t quite right with me...and ever since the day she figured that out the air has been rather chilly here. She asks me what I’m thinking a lot. Asks me why I won’t talk to her.

I don’t really have any kind of an answer. I never have had an answer for Kim. Didn’t really have one for Maisie, either, but I don’t have the energy to talk about my feelings at all anymore. Barely even to you. I talk to you much more than I’d like to, in fact. Someone has to know, anyway. I can’t keep it to myself all the time. That would be a really high expectation to have of anyone. And to tell you the truth, I know things are bad because I feel compelled to talk to you about this. Normally, I’m up for being expected to just avoid talking about my feelings because it’s a very easy expectation to exceed for me. I could lock down my feelings in a strongbox for years, and people could have no idea what I was really on about. They could go through their life, and their interactions with me, and they would never sense that anything was wrong. They'd never sense that inside me sometimes there’s a raging hell storm, or a sea of sadness that just washes me away. I would have people believe that I’m the most tranquil, balanced, serene person they’ve ever met, with barely a complaint or an argument, but it’s categorically false. I’ve got complaints: a world of them, and I’ve got plenty of arguments, and I am so serene only because I’ve learned to meditate everything away. 

...Hell, that’s how I’ve gone on living my life since 1986, except I could never just meditate Maisie away like everything else. I’ve not been completely truthful about my feelings with anyone but Rick and Nick since then. Not one person. But this sort of melancholy is part and parcel for me. I don’t doubt I’d be the same type of melancholy fool were I with Maisie for one reason or another about something, either...but perhaps it wouldn’t be quite so difficult. Perhaps opening up wouldn’t be quite so daunting as it is with everyone else. Maybe if she and I were together I’d feel less aimless, less restless, less...disturbed. 

I’ve felt disturbed ever since that day I drove past the house on St. Mary’s and I saw that black Lexus parked outside, and the umbrella standing next to the front door. Ever since that day I have not been able to manage any kind of equilibrium inside my mind, and I’ve been at war with myself, and now my wife is starting to notice. 

It’s not Kim’s fault. 

It is not Kim’s fault. There is nothing wrong with Kim. Kim is a lovely, beautiful … in fact otherworldly so … intelligent, warm, funny, kind and amazing human being. I feel so much love for my wife, I remember as she saunters into the room looking nothing like she’s looked in weeks: Dyed black hair piled on top of her head, a warm smile tinted with pink on picturesque lips, a pink nightie hidden beneath a pink satin robe with red trim. Long, lean legs tanned and brawny clad in pantyhose attached to a garter belt. 

I see what’s going on here. 

This is that Ivy’s doing, I’d guess. The one she went to see a bit ago. The angry old trophy wife that would do anything to fuck up anybody’s life to temporarily fill the hole in her heart. That one. She’s got a history of getting into Kim’s head. This isn’t new. She hates every man who walks the face of the Earth, and she’s always got Kim driving herself mental going on and on about men keeping secrets. As if she’s ever been honest with her husband in all the years of their marriage, herself. The poor chap still has no idea that their firstborn isn’t his son. And yet she’s out here counseling my wife about why men keep secrets.

I’m gaslighting my own wife, I realise as I can feel her luminescent presence sidling up next to me...getting into the cracks in my shield that I don’t really want anyone getting into right now. After all, I am in fact keeping secrets from my wife: important, big secrets that I shouldn’t be keeping, but I will continue to keep them. Kim has every right to worry that I am keeping things from her, but I’ve spent so many hours in the course of our marriage reassuring her that she doesn’t every time Ivy does this, and it kills me to so blatantly lie. Even Kim climbing into bed with me right now seems like it might feel bad.

I look Kim’s perfect body over: I admire every sheer inch of it: every inch of glowing tawny skin crowned with a spray of curls she’s ironed into her hair. She looks mind blowing, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel my cock quiver a bit upon seeing her. Maybe it’ll work, whatever she’s got planned. It’s probably a good idea, all things considered, to have sex with my wife, but I don’t think I’ll have any expectations here. 

“I’m ready to come to bed, David,” Kim purrs at me, a giggle escaping her mouth when she speaks my name. 

I can feel my cock getting hard beneath my pants already. I may have to give in to her. I do not think I have a choice, I realise as she’s climbing onto my lap, taking my novel from me, throwing it on the floor and spreading her legs over mine. 

“Fuck,” I force out as she starts to grind herself over my bulge that’s growing more desperate and engorged with every passing second I feel her tight, toned ass cheeks and tiny pussy lips gliding over me. 

“I thought you might like this,” she whispers in my ear, tickling every tiny hair on my earlobe with her velvety English voice. 

“You thought right,” I whisper back as my lips find their way to her neck and eventually down her shoulders and over the bit of the top of her breast that’s exposed. She slides her robe off and when it hits the floor I reach my hand out and caress the teardrop of her breast. This is the warmest the air has been between us for a while now, and I’m treasuring every second of her grinding against me: making me need her pussy or her ass more and more. I’m growing harder as each moment rolls by us like we’re riding the tides, and I throw her down onto her back, suddenly overtaken by desire.

She squints her eyes at me in that playful, devilish way she has: the look she uses in almost all of her photos. It’s her trademark, and I’ve kind of felt all these years like it wasn’t special when she used it on me as a result, but tonight it’s working. I’m not sure what the difference is, but I don’t care; I need this. I need something to take my mind off of everything I can’t have right now.

“You’re going the right way to get fucked, my dear,” I whisper to her as I grab a hold of her slim, toned thigh and pull it up against my side, making her pussy accessible to me...but I wouldn’t just move right in for the kill. I’m gonna have some fun with her first, I think as I grab a hold of one tight little ass cheek. 

“That was the plan,” Kim says with a giggle as she runs her hands through what’s left of my hair with one hand and grabs a hold of my ass with the other. “I’ve been thinking about this cock all day long.”

“Have you now?,” I ask with a tease in my voice as I thrust my covered cock against her mound, feeling the friction between us between each one. She thrusts back against me and with every touch I feel some pain my cock is so hard. “Do you want to suck it?”

Normally I get Kim off first, but under normal circumstances our sex would be planned (and it works for us to a certain degree), and I wouldn’t have the kind of raging erection I have right now. Normally I’m about halfway into our sex mentally, not able to make the kind of connection I should be able to make. Thank god it’s not a problem this evening. I’m way too horny to be halfway in.

“You know I do,” she replies as she pushes me off of her and I turn to lie on my back. 

I lie prone as I let her slide my pants off of me. I’m a little embarrassed by my belly, but I don’t think Kim cares at all. It’s Maisie I’d be afraid to show it to...the last time she saw me I wasn’t in this kind of shape. But she’s not here. She’s not here. Maisie’s not here. Maisie’s not here, David. I open my eyes and stare right into my wife’s beautiful face: her parted, full lips, her almond-shaped black eyes and her blushing cheeks, to remind me that this is who I’m here with now, and this is who I need to focus on...no matter what my heart may want.

With my pants thrown on the floor next to her robe in a pleasant heap meant to signify that we’ve made love to anyone who stumbled upon it, she trails down my body with her lips, covering every inch of the line she draws with kisses meant to tantalize...and they do. I’m jerking and sweating and my heart is racing as her lips reach the base of my cock. I can feel each gentle touch of her lips pecking against my pelvis as clearly as I ever have, and I cry out in what could be anguish if it didn’t feel so damn good as she licks my entire length in one go. My erection is raging, pulsing and almost has a life of its own it’s so powerful. I grip at the pine green bed sheets as I close my eyes and focus all of my available attention and energy on the feeling of her tongue swirling around the head of my rod for what feels like 10 agonizing, pleasurable minutes until she closes her lips around it, retracts her teeth and prepares to take every inch into her mouth. 

When her lips slide down my shaft and then back up again over the head of my cock I can feel myself spasm in ecstasy. It’s been a long time since a blowjob felt this good. I focus every second of my attention on the feeling of her lips on me, and her hand now playing with my balls, and it feels amazing. Amazing is an understatement: it feels sublime. I don’t want it to stop. It’s a good thing I can hold my cum back a little bit, because I wanna enjoy this for a few more minutes, but I’m aching to feel myself inside of her, and so I cup her cheek with my hand, stroke her hair, and she raises her head to look up at me. There’s that mischievous gleam in her eyes and that seductive smile, but my stomach drops as I realise I can feel my erection faltering when I look into her face. There’s nothing wrong with Kim. This isn’t Kim’s fault, and I know it’s not her fault, and so it’s important to always keep it in mind. That being said, I’d better take her now while I’ve still got some juice left in me. 

“I wanna fuck you, baby,” I growl at her as the scent of her vanilla sugar perfume mixed with the grassy, earthy smell of hairspray hangs in the hair. 

“Mm…” she hums as she rolls onto her back and lies with her arms and legs sprawled out like a centerfold. I drive her nightie up over her legs, letting my fingertips brush against smooth, just moisturised skin. My mind must be playing tricks on me. For a second I lose myself in what smells like the rich cocoa butter Maisie used to use on her skin after a shower. The cocoa butter that sometimes I’d put on her legs and back...the stuff that could render the shower a complete waste of time. That cocoa butter. For a split second I’m transported right back into that moment, but then as fast as it came it fades away, and I’m shot face first back into reality. Kim’s moisturiser doesn’t smell anything at all like cocoa butter...in fact, it’s light. Floral. Fun. Smells like the type of lotion a very young woman would wear. It’s almost a sort of disappointment, if only because the real lotion doesn’t smell even half as good as the fantasy one. 

Nonetheless...she looks so fucking hot tonight. 

“Darling, could you maybe...you know. Could we have an appetizer before the entree, if you catch my drift?” 

I open my eyes as I feel her hand lightly stroking my cheek from down there on the bed. In a moment of weakness I laugh at myself: a self-deprecating chortle to show exactly how embarrassed I am.

“My apologies, Kim. You’re right; I was hasty. Let me give you exactly what I think you need.”

“Ooh, now you’ve got me all excited, David. Show me what you’ve got, then,” she giggles as I sink down on top of her and take her face in my hands, caressing the satin cheeks she’s blushed with warm pink powder. I bring my lips to hers and bristle as I feel the smooth, warm stalks of her arms enfolding my body in time with our lips savouring each other. 

Even though I can still feel her mound rubbing against my cock as we kiss I force myself to take my mind off of it. We’ll get back to it. I focus only on the feeling that touching her incredible hard body brings me and let my fingers drift over every bit of slightly defined abdominal muscle. Her long, lean body rises beneath me as her back arches, and I notice sweat breaking forth from her forehead when I finally reach her panties and slide my fingers inside them. She gasps as my fingers find their way inside her pussy: long, breathy gasps full of longing every time I thrust my fingers deeper inside of her. The moans coming from her parted berry lips bounce off every corner of the room and reverberate inside my brain; I need to be inside her now or I’ll burst, but why not enjoy the next few moments while I can? 

I lean down and leave a trail of kisses down her flat, taut stomach and over her pubic bone, and I pull her panties down over her thighs. When I finally arrive at her pussy, ready to spread it and eat it until she collapses, I’m confronted with something that’s really rather odd, and more of a turnoff than I ever thought it would be. Kim’s gone and had her privates waxed completely bald. She looks like a porn star. I’ve always really enjoyed when she lets it go, but trimming I don’t mind. This is a bit much...

“What did you do here?,” I ask, trying to conceal my horror from coming out in my voice.

“What, don’t you like it? Ivy said men go mad for this,” comes the reply from up there on the pillow. 

“Uh, yes, love it’s … stunning.” 

There we have it. I was right: this is Ivy Stanton Chester’s doing, as usual. I’ll lie to her, and indeed, to myself, until this is over so we can both go to bed satisfied. 

“Do you think it’s sexy, David?”

“Very much so, dear,” I say as I take the plunge and push my face between her peach pink pussy lips and try to get used to the feeling of her being completely hairless, which might be a fruitless endeavour on my end. She kicks her legs and starts to gasp and moan like she was before, but I can tell she’s playing it up a little bit. I don’t care, though: the acting is a little nice. I definitely don’t have in me what I used to have when I was in my 20s, that’s for sure, and it’s good for a man’s ego to be reminded of that every so often.

She tastes especially fresh today, not like I ever complain about how a woman tastes, but it’s not her normal taste. I let my tongue linger on her clit for a moment, allowing her frustration and her tension to build, and then finally I begin to circle her clit with my tongue until she’s shaking. Then I switch from circles to flickering my tongue over it, and her response becomes ever more frantic. She’s writhing, moaning, panting, screaming: she’s like a fort ready to be toppled, she’s on the verge of total collapse. And just as I start to really, really enjoy the sound of her moaning and screaming my name, just as my body is about to go into a rapture, I forget where I am. Suddenly I’m back in 1978 on a white sand beach off the west coast of the U.S. with Maisie, licking her pussy while the waves rush up about our legs, my body quaking with desire as she dug her fingers into the sand. Suddenly I’m between her legs the night after we were finished at Pompeii, in the hotel room, rewarding her for missing a few days of class only to fall asleep on Roger’s shoulder on the tour bus and be left alone with the guys in the cold while I went off on my own. I’m back on the night we first kissed...the scent of new love hanging in the air...showing her the best time she’d had in years. It’s incredible. And even though I know I’m not with her, for a moment Kim’s pussy tastes earthy like hers does. Coming back to reality...why, that was a little less exciting, but I’ve got to set my mind right. I’m not with Maisie. I’m with Kim. 

With that I move my hands up over her firm stomach until I’ve got both round, buoyant breasts in my hands, and I’m still licking at her furiously while I massage the mounds of fat between my fingers. Kim’s entire body quakes beneath me as I savour every taste of her pussy that I didn’t know I’d been wanting so badly to eat this way. I steady her hips from rocking too much and throwing me off, and after a few moments she’s tapping out on my shoulder, letting me know she’s finished. 

I move my face from her and realise that in the moment I snapped myself back into reality I managed to lose my erection, and now instead of a swollen cock I’ve got a conscience swollen with guilt. Guilt so harsh it burns my stomach. She did herself up all nice, made such a fuss over herself for me, and I can’t even stay present in the moment with her enough to follow all the way through. I can’t even stay present enough in the moment with my own wife to truly say that I love her. Certainly, I feel love for Kim...I feel so much love for her...but it isn’t the same, and I’ve carried on as if it is for nearly 20 years now that we’ve been together. Kim looks over at me as I turn onto my back and let out a long exhale, and her eyes roam over my pelvis. She raises an eyebrow when she notices there’s no more rock hard bulge there under my trousers. 

“Darling, what is it?” 

“I was happy to satisfy you this evening,” I say, immediately masking my guilt and anxiety with a disarming smile, as I reach out and rumple the mess on top of her head that I’ve created. “There will be another time for me. Perhaps tomorrow night, hm?”

I lean over and kiss her, and I place a hand deep in the jet black nest that was once a very seductive, complicated, very impressively constructed hairstyle on top of her head when our lips meet. She grasps at me, a hand on either side of my head, and pushes at my lips with her tongue, begging me to let her in. I do...but I’m starting to feel discouraged. Since this all started with that phone call from Nick I can’t connect with Kim anymore.

“You’re a wonderful husband, David,” Kim whispers to me as she lies down next to me and places her hand on top of mine. 

I’m not a wonderful husband, but I’ll take the compliment for now. It’s not as if I don’t try.

A FEW HOURS LATER

Perhaps my tone before I fell asleep before made me seem … steely. Unlikeable. Uncaring about how I’ve made my wife feel, and about all the lies. That isn’t the truth...that was me hiding the depths of my emotion about it from you because it hurts too much to feel them. I feel my emotions so little that when I feel them I become completely consumed by them. Such is tonight.

I’ve been up for the past two hours. It’s around 4 a.m. now, and I prefer to be up around 8 a.m. most mornings to make our coffee and get Kim her newspaper. Every 20 minutes or so maybe I trick myself into thinking that my eyelids are beginning to get heavy and flutter, but at the last moment before I drift off the pangs of guilt start to twist their knives in my guts. In all of these years...about two decades...I’ve been living a hellish, successful, thrilling, humbling life...a life with so many adventures, accomplishments, memories...but a piece of me has always been missing. And I went on that date with Kim, who I suspected I’d like enough to pursue something with, knowing that I was in love with someone else who I also suspected I’d never move on from. I went into our relationship after 5 months of dating with an engagement ring, and 6 months later a wedding ring on her finger being fully aware that I was misleading this woman. I knew from the first time I met Kim at that party that I was already unavailable emotionally because my heart was with my girlfriend, and I still call her my girlfriend. I will probably always call her my girlfriend….every day for the rest of my days. My life when I am alone is sometimes so consumed by longing...longing that I often wonder if she feels, and I can’t help but hope that she does… that it sickens me. It sickens me sometimes to be so held up in these memories that it keeps me awake, and then some nights I’m so stricken with guilt about never being truly faithful to Kim that it means I am hardly ever in peace. There have been only a handful of times in my middle age that I’ve felt at peace, especially late at night like this.

Were Maisie and I still in touch (and if we were, this scenario would not apply), even speaking to her would feel like cheating on Kim. Even looking at her would feel like cheating. There is no moral or ethical question for me about whether or not it would be unfaithful of me to even set eyes upon her. Kim would see it, and Kim would know upon first seeing it that what happened between us when we first locked eyes was infidelity. How very easy it would be for me to make the decision to go astray were Maisie to come back would alone make it infidelity. It will kill me, this longing, of that I’m quite sure, if I don’t take the last chance I’m ever going to have.

Rick challenged me to see Maisie at the funeral: to talk to her. The process of making the decision to rise to his challenge was thus: 

-Lie awake the night of the party pondering it  
-Impulsively making the decision to do it  
-Having second thoughts...i will ruin my marriage. I will break my children’s hearts. I will put myself in extreme stress.  
-Deciding 100% not to do it  
Having second thoughts...if I do not do this I will regret it for quite possibly the rest of my life.  
-Mull it over for an hour awake, alone in the dark  
-Make the decision to take the chance

And so I lie awake tonight tortured by the fact that this is the decision I have to make. Even having her far away, but still on the same island, while I’m aware of it, is putting me through hell. Why is she living with Syd, anyway? What’s that all about? What could have possessed her to go and live with him, of all things, when for so many years she was terrified just to see his face? 

I don’t understand, and I may never, but I cannot lose my chance. I’ve made the decision, and settled on the decision, to talk to her at Syd’s funeral, and that will be that. Consequences be damned. I’ve lived a life full of guilt; what’s just a little bit more?


	63. Cora - Cambridge, 1969 - Roger's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora's hope for her relationship after Roger came out of amnesia is rekindled when she discovers he is feeling and expressing that he is vulnerable.

_I’m afraid Roger’s gone and gotten his memory back, and not only that...just as I feared he would, he’s forgotten everything about his time as someone else. I tried to remind him of some of the things we did together over the past few weeks, but he’s completely forgotten. It’ll be nice for the guys to find out that he’s all clear on his bass just in time for the show, though, since that’s what they cared about._

_Now I’m shut out of his studio. I don’t even know why he invited me over tonight if he’s just going to sit in there and play instruments all night long. He should’ve just let me drop him off here and then go home so I could take off all my makeup the right way. At least I have clothes here, but still, I really would’ve preferred to spend the night in my own bed even if it meant being alone to sitting here in his living room listening to him play bass while I do nothing. I should take up knitting the way I’m going; at least it would be a safe, calm hobby to do while I sit here and wait for my boyfriend to get over himself._

_He was quiet all the way home, which while not out of the ordinary, was a little baffling. I thought when he came to he’d have a lot more to say, but he seemed spooked. I’m not sure what was wrong with him. It was almost like he’d had some weird realisation when he was out there by the barn. When I went and caught him standing by the barn smoking after Jane ran off I was sure he’d be happy to see me. He’s been happy to see me ever since he had the accident. I’d walk in the room and his face would brighten, and it was so uncharacteristic of him, but I suppose I got used to it. I was expecting him to smile at me and to tell me he was happy to see me. We still aren’t sure what came over him while he was dancing with Maisie, but he sometimes has stomach trouble. It’s not unheard of for Roger to be struck by a vomiting spell or intestinal trouble once in a while for no good reason._

_What do you think it was? Just a freak accident? Maybe a bad bit of meat, or too much drinking? Oddly enough, when Roger was out of his head he wasn’t really all that into drinking. I drank more than he did in those few weeks. I think I even drank more than he did tonight, and then I drove home, which probably was foolish...but he was too somber to drive. I would have asked, but I doubt he would have said yes._

_Should I knock on the door? I desire nothing more right now than to either go home and be by myself or to be with my boyfriend, who has been a peach lately. I wonder if he’ll just go back to being cranky, emotionally barren, cold old Roger or if he’ll somehow have some qualities of the new Roger that he picked up. One can only hope, right? I feel as if I should knock on the door, but a part of me is frightened. Frightened that he’d say no, I could not come in, likely. Frightened of being rejected and brushed aside by the man who’s supposed to love me._

_If I could take every time he’s told me that he loves me in the past few weeks and turn it into money I’d have a thousand pounds if not more, and easily. It took him a bit, he said, to figure it out, but once he had it figured out he was so giving with the words, more giving than he’d ever been. And the sex was fabulous for the first time in a long time, even though I’m hardly ever able to come. I can only hope that once he gets over this current bad mood he’s in he’ll come around and tell me how much he loves me again._

_I think it’ll be fine if I knock on the door. I seldom do when he’s in there, and I’m so bored just sitting here. I hope he can take some pity on me. I really want to be with my boyfriend right now. The deep, stark vibrations coming from the studio help to steel me against potential rejection as I creep toward the door, crossing my fingers behind my back in the hopes that he’ll open it up and let me come in. Even if I could just watch him play for a few minutes I’d be happy, really. I don’t require much; it’s not as if I’d really like to talk up a storm in there, or anything._

_I step toward the door of Roger’s studio, and I count backwards from 10 before I stretch out my arm and...oh, goodness me. I’m terrified! I don’t think I should feel terrified to knock on my boyfriend’s door and ask to sit in the studio and listen to him play music. It doesn’t seem like when I think about that I should be feeling afraid. Is that how one is supposed to feel? I had hoped that being in love would be just a bit more pleasant than this. I had always hoped it would be like...well, what it’s been like with us._

_It occurs to me that I suppose I could just walk away now and go back to sitting in the living room...or go home...but I don’t know what it is that keeps me here with Roger, whether it’s this night or any night. There’s something about Roger Waters that is unmistakably lovable and endearing...something I can’t quite describe, and when I think of whatever that is about him not only am I reminded of why I stay (there’s something in the eyes … I think that’s it...or his dazzling crooked smile...or his snaggletooth…), but I’m also reminded why exactly I must knock on this door and try to go sit with my boyfriend. It’s because he -needs- to know someone loves him. He simply must know how much I love him. Roger feels so unloved. I feel that if I really and truly tried, I could show him just how much I love him, and he’d go back to being as happy as he was after he fell off that horse._

_Well, here goes nothing: I reach my hand out and tap against the smooth, finished wood of his studio door three times as soon as I hear a break in the music he’s playing. Everything goes quiet for a second, and so I knock again, this time with a big more urgency. A little bit more ‘I’d really like you to open the door’ in it. Finally, after I’ve waited for a few more dreary seconds I can hear his footsteps approaching the door. He’s going to open it! He didn’t always open it. A lot of times he’d either ignore me, or just yell ‘yes?’. This time, however, he’s actually going to open the door! Perhaps all is not lost yet. Huzzah!_

_“Is there something you wanted, Cora? I won’t be a moment, I promise. I’ve just got to get to the end of this song, and I’m going to come right out.”_

_The tone in his voice is surprisingly soft, but it’s strained and tired. His eyes are puffy; it’s like he’s been crying, but I’ve no idea what he could be crying about. Maybe he’s in shock, and that’s all, but I can’t help myself. It breaks my heart to see my Roger crying._

_“Darling, whatever could be wrong? Were you …”_

_He puts his hand up in front of my face, and for a second our eyes connect, and I feel lost in the sadness that I can read in his emerald green eyes. He’s stopping me from reaching out to hold him, but I don’t know why - he seems so sad. When I’m sad all I want is someone to comfort me, but Roger isn’t me. Heh … most men don’t want to be comforted I guess, but I wish they did._

_“I’ll be out in a moment. Just wait for me in the sitting room. I’ve got one more bit of this to finish.”_

_With that, he kisses my cheek and closes the door. At least he didn’t yell at me like I expected him to, or like he used to do the first few times I did this.This time it’s clear he didn’t want me in there, but he wasn’t nasty. It was more like he was just...matter of fact. Set in his ways. I could live with that. In fact, I’d be happy to take that over how he usually acts. I don’t need him to be all lovey dovey all the time, but I don’t want him to be a cross, sullen asshole either. So if this is how he’s going to act coming out of his amnesia episode, I think I don’t mind. If this is any preview of the Roger I’m going to get these days, then I think we’ll be okay._

_So I go and sit down on the sofa again, this time twiddling my fingers, trying to distract myself from my fears that I might be wrong: that my Roger will of course go back to being cross, critical and cold. It makes me wonder if he has really changed, or if he’s just in shock. I’m trying to be optimistic…_

_After a few long, boring moments of doing nothing but thinking I hear the door to the studio open, and Roger huffs as he closes it like he’s had a very stressful day that’s just ended. My body tenses up for some reason...I’m not sure why it would do that...as I watch his tall, lanky body move closer to me, and he collapses onto the sofa next to me after we lock eyes._

_“Hey,” he says in a cracked voice that’s just barely audible as he sneaks an arm around my shoulder. “Been quite the evening, hm?”_

_“Yeah, it definitely has. Thank you for agreeing to stay a little longer at the party. I feel like we were barely there before you woke up and wanted to leave,”I say with a halfhearted laugh, trying to lighten the mood, but he doesn’t seem to find it funny. Oops._

_“Well, my apologies that I can’t control when I come out of amnesia, Cora. Amnesia from an incident that I don’t ever remember happening, even.”_

_His voice is so short and nasty; he’s got this edge to his voice that reminds me so much of what he spoke to me like before the accident that I’m really starting to give up all hope of ever getting back anything even close to New Roger now that he’s come back into his head._

_“Well, I’m sorry. I was just joking with you. I know this must be so hard for you.”_

_“It’s alright Don’t worry about it. It’s just…” He stops in the middle of his sentence, pauses, and looks up at the ceiling, his eyes filling with tears. “...I am so overwhelmed by all of this. It’s very disturbing to have lost your memory and have all these gaps in time and space. I have no idea what I’ve done the past few weeks...what I’ve said, how I’ve played music…”_

_Roger’s voice is starting to tremble as he tries his hardest to stop the tears from coming, but he fails at this endeavour, and tears begin to fall from his eyes. He promptly brings his hands to his eyes and covers them, ashamed. I’m touched...I’ve never seen Roger cry before. If he’s ever cried he’s only ever done it where I couldn’t see or hear him._

_“Well, I can answer all that for you,” I volunteer as I snuggle into him and place my hand on his chest._

_“Can you?”_

_“Yes,” I whisper to him as I reach my head up and kiss his cheek. He flushes red a little bit, but makes every attempt to keep himself stony. He’s still got that funny slicked back spray painted black hair. “As long as you’ll wash that sticky stuff off your head!!”_

_“Fine, fine. I’ll pop in the shower after we’re done talking, then. So...tell me.”_

_“Well…” I start, unsure of how to proceed. It’s going to be rather difficult to tell him the truth: that he was much more pleasant, loving, and fun to be with than he was before he had the accident. I know for sure that I’ve got to proceed carefully. “You were...you were...certainly different, that’s for sure…”_

_Oh, damn my nervousness! I’m always such a nervous Nancy in these situations! I’m so terrified that if I say the wrong thing something dreadful will happen. It feels like butterflies, but in my chest. In fact, it’s hard to take much of a deep breath to even prepare myself._

_“Different how?”_

_“You were … well … you were ....”_

_“Come on Cora, spit it out already. What, was I far friendlier and kinder, and everyone liked me?”_

_“That would be… erm, I suppose...I suppose that would be one way of putting it,” I answer plainly, still unable to breathe the way I’d like to._

_“It’s alright. Jane already sort of let on about that. Was no one planning on telling me?”_

_“You talked to Jane?,” I ask, bewildered. I’ve barely spoken two words to Jane. Neither me nor Maisie have really spoken to Jane, but she talked to Roger?_

_“For a moment before she scampered off. She told me what happened that made me lose my memory. A horse accident. What was I doing on a horse, anyway?”_

_“You were picking apples with Maisie, and David and I went off to look at some horses. We decided it would be fun to go horseback riding. David and Maisie got on one horse together, and I tried to get you to ride a horse with me on the double saddle, but you refused and said you could do it on your own, you silly goose. You rode the horse too hard and he threw you! It was the scariest thing I’ve ever lived through. We all thought you’d died.”_

_His eyes go wide at the mention of the incident that put him in the hospital, and he kisses me on top of the head. I look up at him and I notice that tears are still streaming down his face even though he’s trying so hard to stop them...looking up at the ceiling, gritting his teeth. I’m not sure why he’s crying, but it just makes me love him all that much more. I knew he had more in him than what I was seeing._


	64. Rosemary - Cambridge, May 2006 - Mr. Golden's Office

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosemary visits her lawyer, and they hatch a plan for Rosemary to collect what she's owed by selling Syd's belongings.

I can’t stand this office, and I’ve let Bernard know multiple times now that if he wants to meet with me here he’s going to have to clean up a bit around here, but he hasn’t listened since we last spoke of it, I see. The room is a nightmare. He doesn’t allow his secretary to clean up around the office at all because he knows he’d probably have to give her a rise to do so, and so the office is nearly always a disaster. There are case files strewn about all over what would be (if one could see it) a beautiful dark brown pine wooden desk with a very shiny finish. Blue, red, and green binders piled here and there, and they're not just limited to being piled on the desk: they’re piled on the printer, on the copy machine, on the floor stacked up in a pile on the side of the room. I have never seen a barrister keep his office the way Bernard keeps his, and it makes me wonder how he manages to have such a heavy stream of business flowing through here. I suppose it’s because he’s just too good at what he does, and because his reputation precedes him. One sometimes knows how good Bernard is at swindling people before they’ve even met him and had the chance to figure it out for themselves (although many in the community have not figured it out, and the calls to run for local office are always mounting). 

We’re here to discuss our backup plan … because I don’t think that old whore ‘Maisie’ will be allowing my brother to sign the papers that Bernard left with them. She promised to send a copy to her own attorney to get a second opinion, and now that they’re legally married it’s very difficult to make a case for him to sign it. It would make me look pretty awful, and without a doubt cast suspicion onto me were anything to happen, if I tried to insist now. I’ve backed off my plans to kill him for now, as well, as now there is no point except to get May Wells arrested...which would make me feel very happy, but Bernard insists that there’s no gain for me were I to do that. I disagree. I’d use the memory of her being dragged away by the police to go to sleep for the rest of my days were it ever to actually happen. Alas, we’ve moved away from that and now there’s a new plan to bleed my brother dry. 

And that would be why I’m here today. After the episode the other day where she came in just as we were about to have Roger sign the papers I’ve been fuming. I screamed at Bernard for 15 minutes on the phone the day after, chiding him for not arriving early enough and throwing everything off. He was a half hour late, and for what reason he won’t share with me, but I’ll bet it has to do with his wife...who is just as slimy as he is. She’s gotten in with this online-only college that she’s currently running into the ground, and I suspect that she’s only gotten herself involved for the money...but who knows. So after that entire bungling of the plans he and I so carefully made I’m not quite happy with him. To be late to something like that! I remember explaining to him very plainly that being on time was the most important part of pulling off our plan...after all, I had said, once May walked through the door we were screwed if it hadn’t been signed yet. He was late anyway, and look what happened. We’re back at square one. 

His nasty little whore of a secretary with her immodest clothes and her big mouth, Rachel, saw me into the office to wait for him 10 minutes ago, and yet here we are sitting here reminiscing about the other day while I wait for him. Again. I swear, if I don’t end up with a sizable pile of money from whatever plan Bernard now has I will ruin his reputation all over Cambridge. I have many people I speak to on a casual basis. Not really any friends, per se, as making friends has always proven to be a fruitless and painful process for me, but acquaintances. Neighbours, townspeople...people that will listen when I speak. And if I tell them that Bernard Golden is a hopeless lawyer perhaps he’ll fall from grace here in Cambridge. Imagine this man, this old lunatic and charlatan with his messy office and even messier car, running for office here. An American, of all things, as well. Brutish, boorish, impolite people Americans are, and he is absolutely no exception. 

Finally he arrives, and I can tell because I can hear him barking orders at poor Rachel from the doorway of his office before he opens the door. When he does I look for a moment upon his messy mop of hair and his glasses falling down the bridge of his nose, and it makes me sick to even look upon him until at last I swallow it and I’m able to not vomit. I cannot stand this man. If I found Bernard Golden in the desert desperate for water I’d drink some right in front of his face, but for now he’s called the best at what he does, and I am almost out of hope that I’ll see a dime of my brother’s music money. A million pounds, the accountant said. A million pounds that he hasn’t even touched because both the government and I have paid all his expenses. What could May do with a million pounds? She already has millions upon millions of her own, why does she need Roger’s? Now if I had a million pounds I could undoubtedly make strong financial decisions but also have a good time on my own. That trip to Majorca that I’ve been planning for years now to take with his money has never sounded better, honestly, after all of the dreadful business that’s gone on in the past few months. 

He carelessly pushes some binders out of the way to make room for my file, and one of them falls to the floor with a thud which doesn’t even cause him to flinch as he flips through the binder. 

“Rosemary,” he says in a curt greeting as he flips through pages. His eyes pore over strings of words he’s had Rachel type up about me, a whole lot of nonsense that I would have preferred if he hadn’t written down. That could one day be very implicating if things went wrong for me. “What can I do for you today?”

“You know exactly what you can do for me, Bernard,” I hiss with a warning in my voice. 

“Right. You asked me to figure something out to make money. I didn’t really have any ideas, and so I asked Rachel. Let me go get her list.”

This? This is what I’m paying that steep fee for? For him to pass off the work I need him to do to his secretary, a girl of barely 20 years old who’s not even graduated university? 

“Wait a moment. I asked this of you, and not of Rachel. You didn’t tell me-” 

Bernard cuts me off and puts the palm of his hand up to stop me from talking. Close your mouth, that’s what it seems to say. I abhor the way he does that. In fact he does it so often that I’ve come to feel enraged by it every time he does it, and I find it harder every time to hold my tongue. 

“I had other things to do. I’m sorry that I can’t prioritise your case over everyone else’s and also above my rec center project. Now, let me go get Rachel, and we’ll see what she had to say.”

I wait about five minutes for him to come back into the room, and he’s trailed by Rachel, who’s brought two cups of tea on a tray with her, and is smiling at me in such a way as to apologise for her existence. I purse my lips, roll my eyes and shake my head at her and wave my hand at her to leave us. She’s such an awful little thing; I wonder where he found her anyway. She comes to his office dressed like she’s about to go out dancing somewhere they play rap music sometimes; it’s awful. If I could gather the nerve I’d buy her some sensible modest clothes to wear to work, but I couldn’t bear to be so impolite. Imagine the things people would say? 

In response to my wave I get an eye roll from Rachel, who I suspect is very well aware that I don’t approve of her (nor do I approve of Bernard’s hiring of her - I suspect something could perhaps be going on with them, but you didn’t hear that from me) by the way she rolls her eyes right back at me when Bernard isn’t looking. 

“This better be worth the price I’ve been paying you, Mr. Golden. I could ruin your reputation so fast in this town.” 

“Now, Rosemary, there’s no need for us to talk like that to each other that way. Let’s sit down and take a look at this list Rachel was nice enough to make for us.” He opens up the rings of the red binder he keeps my file in and sticks the paper in. When he shuts it his eyes scan the page, poring over idea after idea. Every single one seems to not worthy of consideration until he makes his way to the last one, and then his eyes go wide. “Hmmm…”

“What is it?,” I ask, out of patience. 

“Auction…,” he responds as he looks up at the ceiling like the gears in his head are turning. This is what I hired him for.

“Auction?”

“Yes, an auction. If we cannot make money off your brother the traditional way, we’ll just have an auction. Sell his things. Let those weirdos you do interviews for come and bid on his things. You keep the money, of course. The wife doesn’t see a dime of it.” 

“That’s a remarkable idea. I could very well make more off of some of it than I would have if I’d gotten all 1 million pounds of that royalty money. At least with this I won’t be mandated to share it with anyone else. There’s likely some money for my son in the will as well, right?”

“There is some for Ian in there, yes.” 

“With an auction I could simply pocket all of it. That’s a brilliant idea. Do tell Rachel I said so after I leave, please. What should our first step be?” 

“The first step is don’t say anything to your brother. The second step is don’t say anything to his wife. I know the Wells family, by the way. Her cousin’s husband came to me with a case not long ago.” 

“I won’t say anything. I’ve managed to keep what we’re doing a secret, haven’t I?”

“Indeed. Well, that would be the last thing you would need to worry about for now. Step three is wait for your brother to die, and then we’ll reconvene and go from there. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another client that has a case I can actually win for them. Thanks.” 

He reaches out to shake my hand and once finished directs me toward the door of his office.

I leave in a much brighter mood. I thought all was lost, but finally I’ve found my answer. If I can manage to get Ian to stay quiet about this to his wife, who I do not trust for one second, then we could possibly pull this auction idea off. Imagine how many people would come to have an auction in ‘Syd’ Barrett’s actual house to buy his personal things? I’d even put the guitar up for auction, the one with all the mirrors on it. He doesn’t know I still have it, as I told him I’d thrown it away, but I kept it just in case I was ever in a tight spot and needed to sell it. I could perhaps make more by auctioning it off, and so I’m very grateful I’ve not needed to sell it before now. It feels nice to finally rest and not have to worry about my plans being spoiled or going awry, but I don’t intend to make the rest of May’s time here easy as a result. That just would not do.


	65. Maisie - Cambridge, 1969 - David and Maisie's House - A few hours before the party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie takes a brave step, and makes future plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so I wanted to give you some info I've had rolling around in my head. I know this volume is getting long, but if you really like it sticking with it is worth it! I'm looking at writing about four more scenes or so before volume 2 is finished, and then I'll have a few epilogues and I'll be throwing you two bonus scenes. I had planned to include Pompeii, but in order to keep this to 4 volumes and include more than just the 70s I had to cut it out of volume 3. So you'll get those two scenes after the epilogues. 
> 
> As for the years in the coming volumes I've got a basic breakdown. 
> 
> Volume 3 will take place in 1974 and 1978 in the past, as well as 2007 and 2008 in the the present. Volume 4 will take place throughout the 80s in the past, and 2010 and 2011. I'm not going to be able to include Maisie and David post-breakup because if I did I'd have to add a fifth volume. When this is eventually published as original fiction I will be writing spinoffs for that time period, though.

_So you aren’t going to believe this:_

_I finally decided to call my mother, and to tell her where I am and what I’m doing, and I’ve got David here next to me as I start to dial her phone number. My old home phone number works: I tried it last week and hung up when some young woman answered with ‘Wells residence’. Obviously I’m a little upset upon realizing that my parents kicked me out and sent me to Eugenia’s for absolutely no reason. They told me they were going to move, and they didn’t move. And more importantly, no one’s asked after me in two years. So I’m calling my mother, and David is going to sit here with me, and I am going to talk with her. We went through it step by step before, and so I think I’ll be okay if she doesn’t throw me off track...but oh, she’ll try._

_“Just do it like we talked about. Go totally grey rock on her: no emotion in your voice, very neutral. Don’t offer up any details if you can avoid it, and confront her, but don’t get too angry. Just be very to the point about it. Yeah?”_

_“Thanks, David,” I whisper as the phone rings a few times. My hand that’s holding the phone starts to tremble as the ringing continues, and David smiles a warm half-smile at me._

_“It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”_

_I nod at him the second that the young woman’s pleasant, silky voice comes on the line._

_“Wells residence.” she proclaims, almost, as if it’s some sort of a swanky establishment that everybody’s dying to get into. The ‘Wells Residence’. Yuck._

_“Yes, this is Maxine’s daughter, Maisie. The fat one that she shipped off to England to go to finishing school.”_

_David lifts his hand up over his lips to avoid laughing when he hears me completely disregard his advice right from the word ‘go’, and I swat him as I try to avoid bursting out in laughter myself. It shouldn’t be funny, but damn, it’s funny._

_There is silence on the line for a good two minutes, and I contemplate hanging up, but my anger compels me to stay on the line. And it goes on until the young woman’s voice comes back on the phone._

_“Mrs. Wells will be with you shortly.”_

_“She’s going to get her,” I say to David as I cup my hand over the receiver. “She’s actually going to get my mother.”_

_“Try to remember what we talked about.”_

_“It’s okay. If I want to explode at her I just will have to…” I stop immediately in the middle of my sentence as I hear something on the end of the line. I look over at David again, and he can tell by the way my eyes are widening that she’s picked up the phone and can hear us now. He reaches out to place his hand on my shoulder, and my heart begins to race twice as fast as it already was when I feel his soothing touch. Once she actually comes to the phone I’m okay because I know he’s right there. Even if my mother says something that upsets me David’s here, so it’ll be okay._

_“Maisie???”_

_She sounds frantic when she yells my name like that. It’s like if she lost me in the store when I was a kid, or something. She sounds like she’s in disbelief over hearing my voice. She sounds like she’s been worried about me with that sense of urgency in the way she gasps my name. Pretending she’s been waiting for me to call, and I’ve finally made her dreams come true. If any of that were true she’d have at least tried to find me, but no one’s come looking, and it’s been two years since Roger and I destroyed their bedroom. I don’t buy that she’s been too worried for one second because I realize that she never even bothered. Probably never really even lifted a finger. And I hope she can hear in my voice how much I have disconnected and how little I care anymore._

_“Hi, Mom,” I murmur with all the detachment of a crisp autumn breeze._

_“Maisie, where are you??”_

_For a second I get this instinctual urge to believe that she’s truly concerned (because all my life I gave my mother the benefit of the doubt - desperate to believe that she could ever truly love me more than she hated herself), that she’s really been sitting around worrying about me this entire time instead of what the truth probably is: that she was content to hear nothing from or about me and make no effort to figure out what had happened to me._

_Probably what’s happened is that she’s gone on with her life: her drinking, her medicine, her boyfriend. She’s probably gone on maintaining an image of a good Jewish housewife to people she doesn’t party with or live with, and she’s probably not really ever been coherent enough to actually wonder with any substance about what had happened to her daughter._

_I’m sure Eugenia told her about the sticky, broken, and messy scene Roger and I left for them that day, and how I never came home after that. She just decided never to do anything about it after she heard that I’d acted out that way. I guess I was over the legal age. I was an adult at that point, so why bother?_

_“I’m in England.”_

_“Where in England?? What are you doing? Eugenia said you left the house in a horrible state; I was so embarrassed to hear what you did to it! Did you have a boy with you? Are you living with a boy? From what she said it sounds like you’re with a boy.”_

_David, who can apparently hear my mother going on and on shooting out questions faster than I can answer them, widens his eyes at me and tries as hard as he can not to bust out with audible laughter. I swat at him again as I listen to my mother rattle off even more questions. I know I’m not gonna be able to answer them all, and so I pick which few to address and which ones to disregard. It’s not like I’ll get enough words out to actually make a real impression on her, anyway._

_“I’m in Cambridge. I’m fine.”_

_That’s all I decide she needs to know for the moment, and David nods with tacit approval at me. This is exactly what we agreed on: I give very little information to her, but let my mother know I don’t appreciate that they lied to me about moving and that they never sent anyone to look for me. All that without getting angry enough to engage with her manipulation._

_“So you’re still right near Eugenia, then? You didn’t run off? Who are you living with? What are you doing?”_

_“Mom, I’m fine. I want to know why you haven’t been trying to find me at all in these past two years. Not one person has come looking in two years. I haven’t even left town; it wouldn’t have been hard at all to find me, Mother. And why didn’t you move, again? You said you wanted to downsize. You sent me to fucking finishing school with the Queen of the Fascist Cunts, Eugenia, and for what?”_

_David squeezes my hand and guides me in some breathing to help me relax. He rubs my shoulder just a little...enough to pique my interest... while I wait for Mom to answer me so I can see exactly what she has to say for herself. Her answer certainly takes some time, like she’s thinking about how to formulate it: what excuse she has to make for never searching for her own missing daughter while she’s getting locked in a closet and having tons of sex. It better be a good one with how much time it’s taking her to put it together._

_“Look, Maisie, sweetheart...I told your aunt to please send out a search party for you, but she insisted you didn’t want to be found. She said she found no trace of you, that you left some kind of a note saying ‘I want nothing more to do with you’...and so she sent the search party once for a few days, but they came up with nothing. We assumed you were done with us, but I’ve been waiting for you to call. I thought you might never…”_

_I know that’s absolute bullshit because I didn’t leave a note when Roger and I left. So either Eugenia lied to my mother (which is very possible - Eugenia hated me, and openly), or my mother is lying to me to make excuses for herself (which I could, unfortunately, also find it in me to believe). I watch as David’s face falls, and then when he smiles his pretty half-smile at me in encouragement. He knows what she said is not true, too, and I can tell it hurts him to watch me be hurt by my mother’s lies. In fact, so much of what he’s thinking seems apparent to me, but I’m very nervous that it’s all in my head._

_“Well, Mom, I’m afraid that Eugenia lied to you, because I didn’t leave a note. She was right, I didn’t want to be found, but I guess I would have appreciated knowing that you made the effort. And why didn’t you move, anyway? You were adamant about it, both of you. I remember the screaming match we had when you told me you were shipping me off to go to finishing school in England so you and dad could get a smaller house.”_

_“Well, we couldn’t sell the place, Maisie.”_

_That’s such a short answer, and the way she stammers it absolutely lets me know it’s a lie and that I can’t trust it. She can’t defend throwing me out of the house because there’s no defense for it. Her throwing me out led me to do things that for most parents drive them to want to throw their children out. All she has in her clever little arsenal is that one very transparent sentence._

_“Couldn’t sell it? Why? Lynette kept it in immaculate condition, and you were always having people work on it. Has it fallen into disrepair?”_

_“No one wants to move to Massachusetts these days. New York and California are where everyone wants to be. We put it on the market and had no takers, so we decided to stay.”_

_“How long after you shipped me off did you decide to stay?”_

_“Now, dear, please stop saying we ‘shipped you off’. That’s not at all what happened, and you should know that by now. We wanted to prepare you for marriage, and in the shape you were in …”_

_“What shape was I in, Mother?”_

_I hope my words hit her like an icepick. I hope that when she hears me warn her with that sentence she feels it piercing her rib cage after making its way through all the excess adipose tissue that’s covering it._

_“Let’s never mind that now. Where are you? Who are you living with?”_

_I look over at David, who caught the ‘shape you were in’ remark, and seems to understand exactly what she meant. He holds up his index finger and runs off, when he returns he’s carrying a piece of paper and a pen. I wait to answer my mother, who totally avoided my question, and has by now started to go on about my father’s new consulting job and her sister’s new son-in-law who’s a cardiac surgeon, and on and on...yadda, yadda yadda...and I watch as David writes something down on the paper while he’s trying to contain excited laughter. When he raises the paper up he looks at me and shows it to me, and it says ‘Your shape is the best shape’, and I can feel my face catch fire as I lose a fight to a smile and shake my head at him. I mouth the word ‘thanks’ as I prepare to answer her, and I watch with interest as David turns his head to place the paper on the couch next to him. I’m admiring the shape of his exotic profile, and then I remember I’ve gotta tell my mother at least something._

_“I’m living in Cambridge with a boy named David right now.”_

_“So you ARE living with a boy in Cambridge. Your aunt said you very clearly had been there with a man, if you know what I mean, which I know you do. Do you know exactly how ashamed your father was when he found out what you did to his sister?”_

_I swallow the temptation that I feel: temptation to just shout her down and take her head off with a verbal machete. Instead of being worried at all about me she is concerned pretty much primarily with some cum on her sister in law’s bed._

_“It’s not the same boy I was living with.”_

_I don’t even acknowledge that other shit she said. There’s no way I’ll give her the satisfaction of knowing that it hurt me._

_“You’ve lived with more than one boy? Are you getting married? You haven’t lost your virginity, have you? Oh, what am I saying? You clearly have. Shame on you, Maisie.”_

_“Mom, that’s not important. I’m fine. I’m safe. I’m living with someone who’s a good … a good …” My stomach starts to quiver when I try to force myself to say the word ‘friend’, and David looks at me expectantly, but I’m not sure why I can’t bring myself to call him that. That’s what he is, right? “A good friend.”_

_“A friend? A boy isn’t a friend, Maisie, especially when you’re living with them. What would your grandmother say if I told her? Do you know what this stress is doing to your father? I thought I raised you better than this. What must people say over there about you?”_

_“No one says anything because it’s not weird.”_

_“Well, it’s certainly not how I raised you.”_

_What’s she talking about, how she raised me? How did she raise me? She didn’t raise me to respect my body, not at all. She didn’t raise me to respect myself as a person. She raised me to second guess myself, to critique myself, to distrust myself. So the places I’ve ended up...yeah, I think it does go along with how she raised me, but once again...it is not worth it to tell her that. I will accomplish absolutely nothing at all by telling her that. It won’t benefit me in any way, and it’s just another source of narcissistic supply for her._

_“Look, Mother, I just wanted to let you know that I’m safe in Cambridge and I’m not in danger.”_

_Not anymore, at least._

_I really want to add that dig in there at the end of that to drive her nuts, but I decide against it. I don’t think I even want to tell her about Syd and the ordeal I suffered while living with him because she’d just find a way to blame me. Sometimes with my mother it’s best not to share everything. You never know who will be told about it the next day. Most likely it would be her sister, but either way it’ll get back to you._

_“Will you come home and visit? We’d love to see you.”_

_“Hold on.”_

_I put my hand over the receiver and I look over at David, who’s smiling sympathetically at me._

_“What’s up?,” he asks._

_“We’re going to be in Boston on the tour, right?”_

_“Yes, I think so. Why?”_

_“Do you think we could stop at my parents’? She wants me to visit. It’s okay if we don’t have time.”_

_“Depends. We have one free day in Boston before we have to leave, the day after the gig. Do you think she could maybe try to do it that day?”_

_“Probably. I doubt they have anything going on. Will you come with me? I couldn’t bear to go alone. It’ll be too awkward.”_

_“Yeah, I’ll come with you,” he says with another warm, reassuring smile that tells me I don’t need to worry about my mom at all as long as he’s here. God, I feel like I’m dying every time I look at him, but in only the best way._

_“Mom? We’ll actually be in Boston in early December for one day, so if you can see us on that day then we can come.”_

_“One day? Why only for one day? Who travels from England to Boston and stays for one day? And who are you coming to see that you’re only staying one day? You know, you could come for Hanukkah! It’s just your father and I this year, Rachel is flying to Tucson with her husband and the kids to see his family.”_

_“Yeah, we can come for Hanukkah. Mom...is Lynette still there?”_

_I think with fondness back on my real mother, my nanny and my parent’s housekeeper Lynette, and hope to god that she’s still there. If nothing else it’ll be the one real reason to actually go._

_“Yes, she is. She’s retiring next year, so you’ll get to see her just in time. We couldn’t give her up. Your father suggested firing her and downsizing the staff, but after we discovered that we wouldn’t be able to sell the house we decided to keep her on. She keeps the house in immaculate condition, as you said.”_

_“Well, then we’ll see you on December 5th. Like I said we only have one day, so keep that in mind.”_

_“You’re bringing your boyfriend?”_

_“He’s not...well, yeah, I’m bringing him.”_

_Mine and David’s eyes instantly lock on to one another as he starts to realize exactly what my mother and I both said. It’s that look he’s been giving me: the weird, curious, and nervous look that he gives me when our eyes meet this way. I start to breathe a little quicker as my heart rises into my throat, threatening to choke me, and I don’t even for a second consider breaking my gaze...and it’s been a very, very long time since I haven’t broken someone’s gaze._

_“Oh, good! We are so excited to see you and to meet him, Maisie Daisy! This is going to be wonderful. I’m going to call Eugenia right now and tell her you’re safe. I’m sure she’ll be ecstatic.”_

_“Do what you want, Mother. I don’t want to see her, though. It’s out of the question. The way I was living there, she’s lucky I didn’t destroy more of the house.”_

_She takes a second before she responds to that, probably trying to regulate her response so she doesn’t come across as angry. It makes sense that with the very little time we’ve got she wouldn’t want to fight, and that’s fine … because I certainly don’t, either._

_We end the phone call with a goodbye and a disappointing ‘I love you’, although it’s half-hearted from both of us. I still don’t think she means it. But what I do know, when I look over at David after I’ve hung up the phone, is that no matter what happens I’ll be fine._


	66. Kim - Sussex, June 2006 - David And Kim's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim and Ivy look Maisie up online, and Kim is distressed by something she finds.

“We should look her up, I’ve decided,” Ivy says after a long drag on her cigarette. Her eyes roam over my living room wall: deep blue with white baseboards...a large frame with many little pictures of our family, and a potted plant. 

She’s the only one I allow to smoke in my house, and it’s only because it’s not worth the fight I’d have with her if I told her she couldn’t do it. So I’m sitting next to her in my computer chair. We were in the middle of looking up a cookie recipe that we could make for the grandchildren when they come up tomorrow evening. Her long, slender fingers grip her cigarette with vague disinterest, and she slings one full, powerful leg over the other, a black stiletto dangling from her stockinged feet with painted red toenails. 

“Look who up?,” I ask as I scroll, distracted, down a page full of links to different cookie recipes. I know Ivy isn’t actually going to help, she’s just going to watch, so I don’t want to pick anything too complicated. 

“That woman you said your husband was looking up on the internet. ‘Maisie’ Wells.”

It feels like she’s dropped a weight in my stomach when she mentions the name, and I realise she’s confirming one of my worst fears: that this might be a woman that David has some kind of connection to that he hasn’t told me about...and that’s the reason why he’s been acting so strange lately. 

“Do you...do you think so?,” I murmur as I keep my eyes fixed on the screen, on all the different names for the same cookies over and over again, and finally I stop on one. There’s nothing better than old fashioned chocolate chip cookies, so fuck it. That’s what we’ll do. “I’ve found one,” I add. 

“Fine, print it out. I’m just telling you, Kim, to stay on track, that you should probably take a bit more of an interest in this woman that your husband left open in his search bar. You never know what the truth might be. For all you know he could be… well, I’d rather not say it.”

“Kim, my husband isn’t a cheater. David is a lot of things. He’s stubborn, he hates to talk about his feelings, he’s standoffish at times, and very often sort of melancholy...and all of that is quite a lot to deal with, but he isn’t unfaithful. Trust me.” 

“I trust that you feel that way, dear, but all men are unfaithful. It’s their way.” 

Finally, after I’ve set the printer to retrieve my recipe, I deign to look at her and survey the bitter, chilly look in her eyes as she taps her cigarette against the rim of the ashtray I keep for her. I shake my head and narrow my eyes, and I click my tongue to add to how obvious I want to make it that her words are annoying. 

“Don’t project your disappointment in your own marriage onto mine,” I hiss at her as I grab the two pieces of paper from my printer with an abruptness that surprises even me. “Just because you regularly find your husband in your bed with your staff and with local girls it doesn’t mean that everyone’s husband is a scumbag.” 

This time it’s Ivy that shakes her head at me, and who narrows her eyes, but her lip twists up into a cruel smile, and she manages a condescending chortle. She blinks her eyes in a slow, demure manner, inhales and exhales a long cloud of blue-grey smoke, and tucks a lock of silver blonde hair behind an ear. An all-knowing, cynical air settles around her as she prepares to kill me with words.

“We all say it’s not our own husband at first, don’t we? We all manage to convince ourselves that our own husband is one of the good ones...until we find out one day that he isn’t, and then we realise our bitter friends were onto something.” 

“I don’t think I need to look her up. She’s probably just some TV personality that he saw once or twice and thought was pretty. Men look up famous women all the time.”

“Well, yes, Kim...but it’s not as if he’s looking up Lily Tomlin or Raquelle Welch on Google, is he? That’s what normal men do: look up actresses. Your husband doesn’t even read, love. It’s worth looking into is all I’m saying. Do with it what you will.” 

Her words knock the wind out of me...because she’s right. David doesn’t like to read, and this lady’s a journalist. I don’t know what it is, but something is telling me that Ivy might be right. I look into her eyes, connecting with her, trying to see how serious she is...and she’s completely serious. I can tell by how she will not break eye contact with me.

“You’re not playing around, are you? You really think this is worth looking into.”

“Correct,” she says as she twists the butt of her cigarette around in the ashtray and then drops it there. 

“Like, you’re very certain there’s more to this, and it’s not just a silly crush.”

“Yes, Kim, how many different ways do you need me to say it? You’ve tried everything I’ve suggested you try: you seduced him and you said he didn’t even care to get off, you’ve given him gifts to help him distract himself from whatever it is and there’s been no change, the two of you have been going on more date nights recently and you’ve been dressing up a bit more, and what has it brought you? Not a thing. He’s still being distant. There’s got to be a reason behind it, doesn’t there? What do you think it is? Because a woman would make the most sense to me.”

The truth is that I’ve been avoiding thinking too hard about what could possibly be going on with my husband for weeks now. Occasionally I’ll slip, usually when I’m talking with Ivy or have just talked with Ivy, and I’ll get stuck ruminating on how he’s changed so suddenly, but most times I think I’ve been able to keep it well under control. When I hear Ivy forcing me to think about it I’m suddenly brought back to the nights I’ve lied awake while he’s slept...or not slept…

“I know he’s not sleeping. Sometimes I lie awake next to him and I can tell he’s awake, tossing and turning like he does. I mean, it’s happened before over the time we’ve been married. It’s not entirely uncommon for David just to stay awake for hours. Sometimes he even gets up and goes to his studio to do who knows what. But lately...I don’t know, Ivy. This is different. You’re right.”

“So, get on to Google and put in her name again, and this time we’ll dig a little deeper. You said you only scanned a few things, so you haven’t done a proper search. For all you know there could be a direct clue somewhere. I say it’s worth it to look. What do you say?”

I take a moment to think about this: if I say yes it could open doors to places I never thought I’d have to go, and that I never wanted to go. If I say no, I might just be left wondering until he comes out of this spell, and maybe even after I’ll still wonder about it. This is one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make, and perhaps it shouldn’t have to be, but I don’t quite know what it is exactly about having to make the decision that makes it so much harder than all the other hard decisions I’ve had to make over my life. There’s something…something that I can’t quite put my finger on. 

This wondering and waiting is killing me. I can hardly stand it anymore, having to live with this constant heaviness in the pit of my stomach that’s telling me something’s off. Something isn’t quite right, and usually when there’s smoke there’s fire. I’ve got to know. 

“Yes, I think we should do it. Let’s look her up.” 

“Alright. Come sit next to me. I’m going to need all the emotional support I can possibly get while I have to do this just in case anything actually does show up that’s cause for alarm.”

She scoots her chair over next to me at the computer, and stares at the screen for a few minutes, waiting for me to type in Maisie Wells’ name. It takes me a few minutes because I can feel the fear rising in my belly again, that weighed down feeling I’ve been getting every time I have to think too hard about David being distant. I’m trying to convince myself as hard as I can, so that maybe next time it sticks, that we won’t find anything and that it’s all just a harmless crush, or that Maisie … whoever she really is... is just some woman whose political commentary he might be enjoying. Who knows. We aren’t even American, and she seems to write mostly about America. There’s just too much that doesn’t make any sense. 

“You’re nervous then, aren’t you? I would be, too, if I were you. Having no idea what my own husband with all his sexual appetites gets up to is bad enough, but at least I expect it of him.”

“Let’s not go assuming right from the off that there’s something untoward going on. Let’s assume that it’s a harmless crush, and we’ll go from there. Maybe it isn’t even that. Let’s just...let’s go into this with no bad expectations. It’ll be easier for me that way.”

“I will not begrudge you remaining optimistic until you have no other choice, but I can’t help but be pessimistic. I’ll hold my tongue until there’s reason for me not to hold it anymore, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking,” I snark as I type ‘Maisie Wells’ into Google. My heart beats faster and faster, almost bursting out of my chest, as I type each letter on my keyboard. With every keystroke I fear a little more that my world may just fall apart if I go through this, but my resolve is pretty strong. “Whatever it is, I’ll be ready for it, but for the time being I’d rather let myself believe that it’s nothing.” 

Now I press enter, and a whole splay of different links comes up. Links to articles, that op-ed column she wrote for the New York Times, a bio page on Time Magazine’s website. Articles about her articles. A LinkedIn page. Then there’s a Wikipedia page. Ivy directs me to click on that, and I realise that though I had accessed it before there’s a lot more reading that I didn’t get to. I kind of just skimmed the bits about her career and let myself ignore everything else. 

“Click on ‘Personal Life’,” Ivy instructs with careful precision. 

I follow her instructions and scroll down to the section that says ‘Personal Life’. I click on it, and there’s a few sizable paragraphs of information that I had just ignored before when I snooped on David’s computer, as if I was aware without really being aware that there might be something there that I didn’t want to read.

“Let’s see,” I say as I scroll quickly through her bio, but now I’m stopping to read it. The two of us let our eyes scan the webpage, looking for anything relevant.

_Born February 26, 1948 in Carlisle Massachusetts, May ‘Maisie’ Wells is the child of Henry Wells, the founder and CEO of the Henry’s chain of department stores in the US, and Maxine Goldstein, a botanist turned housewife. Wells was educated at private schools throughout her youth, but according to her own words was bored by school and spent most of her time studying in the library. She was sent to England in 1967 to live with her aunt and uncle and attend Ms. Havisham’s Charm School For Girls, a finishing school that she says forced her to stick to a strict diet and exercise regimen and learn how to keep herself up. She reports feeling very oppressed by this environment, and she ran away from her aunt’s house to live with a boyfriend that same year. Not much is known about her life from 1967 to 1975, when she started college, although she speaks lightly about having some trouble with a few boys in England that she got mixed up with._

_Wells attended Cambridge University from 1975-1979, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in political science and journalism respectively. She worked for a series of small newspapers in England until she left in 1986 and returned home to the States, where she took a year off of work to travel before getting back to the workforce in early 1988 and settling on a job at Time Magazine. In 2002 she was named Editor In Chief of Time Magazine’s up and coming website and retired in 2005 after a lauded op-ed published in The New York Times asking Americans to carefully consider their support for the electoral college system after the bungled 2000 American Presidential election. Wells writes primarily about the electoral system, the devolution of privacy in American life, foreign relations with the Middle East (often taking stances that continue to be on the fringes - she was one of the first journalists to openly speak out about the American record of subjugation and murder in the Middle East and declare the war in Iraq unconstitutional and morally wrong), and voting rights, citing a GOP push to get the Voting Rights Act repealed in order to suppress the right to vote in the USA._

_Currently, Wells resides in New England and shares a home with four female friends. She is ‘happily unmarried and childfree’, and is very careful when speaking about her personal life, though she has openly admitted in interviews that she suffers from post traumatic stress disorder while refusing to talk about the triggering event. Wells is rumored to have been romantically involved with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, but refuses to confirm or deny these rumors._

That last sentence sends a sharp, deadly pain through my chest. My breath becomes labored and heavy, and I ball my hand into a fist and squeeze until my nails are almost poking through the skin of my palm. All of a sudden I feel like I’m seeing red. I look around the room and everything has a border of red around it. I’m feeling furious. This can’t be a coincidence.

Ivy’s frozen blue eyes lock with mine as I look in her direction, and they’re made even colder by the air of ‘I told you so’ that clouds them. We share a prolonged, distressed look, and then all of a sudden her eyes fill with something that stinks of pity. This angry, empty, freezing feeling that I have must be the one she talked about before: the feeling you get when you find out your own husband isn’t necessarily ‘one of the good ones’. 

“Well, well, well. Would you look at that…” Ivy muses. “That last sentence gives me everything I need to know, unfortunately.”

“I’m not...it can’t be. That has to just be a rumour, Ivy.”

“Moved to England in 1967...went to Cambridge University? Do you think it’s a coincidence?”  
Do I think it’s a coincidence? That’s a loaded question: a question I don’t think I can answer for her right now. On one hand, I am trying like bloody fucking hell to believe that it’s a coincidence, but on the other hand...part of me realises that it’s likely not. The only thing I feel I can do right now is more searching.

“I have to search more. One way or another I’ll find the truth.”


	67. Roger - Cambridge, 1969 - Roger's Mother's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger and Cora visit Roger's mother. On the way there, Roger recounts the sordid events of the night before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW. CW: voyeurism

_can’t believe Cora roped me into this fucking meeting with my mother. I can’t believe I allowed her to get under my skin enough that I gave in and told her this was going to work for me, because it isn’t. The first girl I should be introducing to my mother is not Cora, but rather her best friend. We all know this. All this little outing is going to do is convince Cora that she and I have a future when I’m not exactly sure that we do. And she’s all nervous about this; you should have seen the way she was running about like a fucking headless chicken this morning picking out what to wear, and how to wear her hair, and how to sound perfectly smart and polite. If I liked her more I might think it was cute, but it was so fucking irritating! That’s what she had to be nervous about, right? Meanwhile, I got no space to show any nerves at all. I’m sitting here having never introduced a girl to my mother before, completely unsure of everything that’s going to entail. Mother isn’t exactly the warmest person in the world, now is she? She can put on the face in front of other people, but it’s a gamble knowing exactly how well she’ll do at that inside her own home, and it’s also a gamble to bring Cora around her because if she doesn’t like Cora she will make that painfully obvious, and we will have a horrible time, and then Cora will give me a hard time about it on the way home. I wish that I never agreed to this. This is going to give me such a headache later._

_At least Cora agreed to change her clothes before we left to come here. She tried to wear a miniskirt to meet my mother! A miniskirt! Can you believe that? What could have possibly possessed Cora to think that what a woman wants to see her only son’s first serious girlfriend walk through her front door wearing was a miniskirt? I was just mortified. Can you imagine if she’d refused to change when I asked? She found a nice pair of tan trousers instead, and that was when I couldn't find anything else to complain about and could no longer delay us leaving any longer. I even tried to drop hints that she may not have a nice time, or that my mother would be difficult to please, in order to try and get her to change her mind, but it didn’t work. She either didn’t notice that I was trying to put the fear of god into her (well, not ‘God’, but quite literally my mother), or she noticed, and refused to give in to me. There were quite a lot of ‘that’s nice,dear’s and ‘I’m sure it won’t be a problem’s that she threw my way as she got ready. When she was done I would not leave until I changed out of the outfit that I conveniently decided I didn’t like, and then I couldn’t leave without feeding the fish, and then I was unhappy with her skirt so she had to change. I probably delayed our departure by a half hour, and that wasn’t nearly long enough to make me feel better, so I’ve sunk into remembering last night to get me through this short, but stressful drive. Cora’s going on about something, but I don’t care to listen to what it is. Gossip or something. Nothing substantive or interesting._

_Last night I got over myself, swallowed all of my nerves and finally dared myself to watch Maisie changing her clothes in the bedroom she slept in before she got into David’s bed. I saw her walk in and start to go through her drawers, and I realised then that she was about to get changed. At first I thought to walk away and to be decent, but that’s what I’ve always done: let her change without me watching. It was only last night I discovered that doing so wasn’t necessary: I didn’t feel as rotten doing it as I thought I for sure would feel. I thought it would be awful and dreadful sitting there watching her without her consent while she took off her clothes, but I felt no guilt. I didn’t even feel slightly off about it. It simply felt like something I was meant to do. After all, Maisie is mine...even if she doesn’t know it yet. One day she’ll smile knowing I’m watching her dress. One day..._

_From the instant I saw that red t-shirt go up over her head my dick grew hard as a rock. It made me awfully dizzy: must have been all the blood rushing from my head to my cock so fast. She stood there in her flesh coloured bra for a moment, weighing one nightgown against the other. One of them was a ‘shortie’, Cora calls it. It was small, probably came down well above the knee, pink, and frilly. She lifted the hanger it was on, considered it, and then placed it back on the dresser handle it was hanging on in favour of the perhaps more ‘mature’ aqua green nightdress with the plunging neckline bordered with white lace. It didn’t bother me at that moment that either of those dresses would be likely to have the same effect on David when she wore them in bed with him … because the moments where I watch her and she’s alone are moments that David can never have....but it bothers me now that I’m far away from the situation, I find. She wears that to bed with him for too long, eventually he won’t be able to control himself, and she doesn’t say no. Sometimes I go to bed wondering if on any given night that’s going to be the first night they have sex, and last night made that worry just a bit harder to get away from._

_When she put the other nightdress back on the dresser handle I watched as she unbuttoned her jeans and slid them off herself: she rolled them down gently and my cock was so fucking hard it moved on its own when she revealed all of that soft, pure ivory flesh I’d been missing. My eyes wandered over her magnificent, ample body, and I couldn’t help...as she stood there for a moment gazing into the mirror, pushing her breasts together as if she were unhappy with them as they are (and I cannot imagine why she would be)...but become impatient while I waited for the undergarments to come off, too. For those few moments that she stood there clad only in underwear and a bra I spent most of my time roaming over her strong, thick thighs and remembering with a desperate longing the way they felt clamped around my hips while I fucked her hard and deep...the way those strong legs begged me with their strength to keep going even when she didn’t think she had anymore in her. It took a lot of control for me to be able to stop myself from climbing in through the window, surprising her in there, taking off the bra with my hands and the panties with my teeth, and ravaging her until she fell asleep. What would David think finding her in that state?_

_Finally she started to take off her bra, and by the time those small, perfect mounds of flesh with their tiny pink nipples were revealed to me I had already pulled my cock out of my jeans and started stroking it. I had no other choice: she just looked that good. While I stroked my cock faster to keep up with my pulsing, raging erection she slid her pink panties with the white flowers all over them down off of her legs (I remembered those in particular, they always did make her ass look amazing), and finally she stood in front of me completely nude and vulnerable. It took all the strength inside me at that point not to fall out of the tree I’d managed to crawl up into that’s right next to the spare room window and alert everyone to my presence, and then as a result completely fuck up my life (though it might have been worth it for everything I got to see.) Although I had stopped to consider perhaps revealing myself to her in the hopes that when she saw me she’d be so surprised she couldn’t say no...as I laid her down on that bed and kissed every perfect, velvety soft inch of her and ate her pussy until she couldn’t catch her breath. I could smell the memory of the chocolate cookie scent of her skin at night when I gazed at her naked body through that window, and I could feel for an instant every single agonising feeling I felt lying next to her so fucking confused before we broke up._

_I started jerking my cock like mad when she began to walk around the room completely naked arranging this and that, moving one thing from here to there to make the room ‘just so’ the way she often did, and then she pulled out the tub of lotion I had just been thinking of. I felt like I had hit the jackpot. I gripped myself as hard as I could tolerate and jerked myself furiously watching her rub the lotion into her skin. When she started to rub it into her breasts I think I almost started crying; I was so hard that it pained me. Eventually, of course, I could tell I was ready to cum, and so I managed to quickly scale down the tree (hopefully unheard) to gather it in my sock, stuff the sock in one of my pockets, and walk home where a few hours later I was able to do it again with no difficulty in the bathroom while Cora slept in my bed. I had told her I was going to David’s...just didn’t say it was to watch Maisie get undressed and masturbate outside her window. She asked to come, of course, but I told her that Maisie was wrist deep in housecleaning anyway, and that company would only throw her off. I feel no shame lying to Cora. I’ll do anything I have to do to preserve my ability to do as I’ve been doing without anyone finding out._

_So back to the present moment: driving down the streets I grew up on, the streets I ran around looking for friends on with no success until I met Syd, the streets I wasted time on...to the house where I grew up and tried desperately to get away from. My mother lives 20 minutes from me, but I haven’t been round to visit in years, and it’s for a reason. As I hinted before, my mother is an awful person. She’s a cold, judgmental, overprotective and oppressive person who I was happy to get away from. I felt staying in town and never visiting was a much bigger ‘fuck you’ than moving far away and never visiting, but I’m sure we’ll get the real answer today. I wonder how she will receive me...forget about Cora. I’m almost certain she won’t like Cora, but she may be terrible to me as well. Being as intuitive as she is, I’m sure the fact that I’ve been avoiding her is not at all lost on her, and that will be evident in her behaviour._

_Cora’s stopped blathering now that we are pulling into the driveway of my childhood home: a small white two bedroom house not unlike every other house on this road in this very tucked away part of Cambridge that I lived some of my absolute worst years in. I look over at Cora with fucking disgust for making me come here, but she doesn’t notice. I told her a few days ago how badly I didn’t want to come here. Not because of her, but because the memories of this place plague me at night and I can’t get away from them, and I don’t see any reason for her to meet my mother. It’s not as if we’re getting married._

_Well, we’re here. Time to suffer through this and get it over with. I had to do this to get her off my back about it, ultimately. I couldn’t listen to her go on about it anymore. She tries so hard not to get angry at me but I could always tell when she was really pissed off, and I hated how hard she tried to avoid showing it. It was unbearable. I’d rather she just have hit me or something. At least I’m used to that._

_Cora stands up and gets out of the car before I do, and I grab a cigarette, light it, and throw my match on the ground right where I hope Mother can see it later. Cora’s waiting for me, but I’m taking my time looking over this eerily well manicured yard: shrubbery cut up into rectangles guarding the front porch of this old white cottage house. The white cottage house with a curved door bordered by brick. The door’s a deep brown kind of wood...perhaps pine. The top floor window curved just like the doorway. No shutters on the windows, only a brick trim stark against the white of the whole place. I remember many a lonely day spent here in this drab old yard._

_“You alright, babe?,” she asks me as she sidles up next to me and slips her arm through mine. I bristle with disrelish when I feel her lips against my cheek, and I slip my cigarette into my mouth and swat her away._

_“I’m fine. Let’s head in, then.”_

_“This is going to be wonderful, Roger. I’m going to love her, I promise you.”_

_“No you aren’t, dear, but you’re welcome to try,” I state without an ounce of pleasantness in my voice. If I’ve got to suffer through this for her sake she’s got to suffer through me not enjoying it. That’s what makes this fair. Did she really think that if she was going to force me to see my mother that I was going to pretend to want to be there? Sometimes I really do suspect that she’s as stupid as she looks._

_I swallow as we approach the door: a swallow of fearful anticipation, and when I finally bring myself to knock after a few moments of relishing the last of the peace I’m going to feel for the day, my mother answers almost immediately. She’s just as I remembered her: a tall, slender, sharp woman. Sharp, that would be the best word to describe her. Her face is sharp, her nails are sharp, and her tongue is most certainly sharp. In fact, nothing much may be more sharp than her tongue. She still has that awful 40s hairdo, the victory rolls all the women wore after the war ended. Cora’s eyes are falling upon my mother’s hair, taken in by every perfect detail, and it makes sense. If nothing else perhaps they can bond over their love of needlessly complicated, impractical hairstyles._

_Mother’s eyes fall first on me, and then on Cora, but they linger upon Cora perhaps longer than they lingered upon me. I’d have liked to believe that a mother, after not seeing her son for a few years, would pull her son into her arms and embrace him, but she does no such thing. Not my mother, no. My mother sizes up my girlfriend like she’s a cow ready for slaughter while acting as if I’m an afterthought._

_I feel Cora’s hand squeezing mine. She’s nervous, and I have to admit that I’m happy to be proven right, and that I do hope she tells me later that I did indeed tell her that liking my mother would be impossibly difficult, and that it was obvious right from the off._

_“Roger,” my mother commands as she continues to stare Cora down with all the burning fury of the sun. “How nice of you to finally come visit.”_

_I can tell by the steely sound of her voice and the way that sentence came from right through a closed-tooth smile that she was at the very least hinting at sarcasm, but I believe the idea that this is supposed to be subtle enough to be a hint is optimism on my part. Seems as if I haven’t completely lost all hope for Mother, have I? At least somewhere inside of me something wants to believe that she could have a shred of decency or show me even an ounce of love or warmth._

_“Mother, this is Cora. She’s my girlfriend.”_

_“Yes,” she concurs without saying anything else, and she reaches her hand out with a limp disinterest for Cora to take. Cora tries to shake her hand, but my mother pulls her hand away before she can really shake it for real. I can already see in Mother’s sharp, nasty face that she has decided she dislikes Cora right from the starting shot, and we may never get another chance after this. This might just be the way she feels. I don’t know. I’ve never brought a girl home to her before._

_“It’s very lovely to meet you, Mrs. Waters. Thank you for having me as a guest. I’m so excited to finally meet you,” Cora chirps like a cheerful little bird._

_She’s trying so hard._

_“Bernice, if you will,” Mother responds with one more long, discerning look in Cora’s direction. “Come in, both of you. Tea is on and I’ll have lunch out in just a few moments. Feel free to sit in the sitting room, Roger. Cora, why don’t you help me in the kitchen?”_

_And she wastes absolutely no time in getting to know Cora at all before she’s decided to separate us and isolate her. What a cunning little manipulator my mother is (and always has been). If she didn’t dislike Cora already she is about to. After all, Bernice Waters could find something wrong with anyone. Could be something others may not even notice: Bernice will notice, and she will point it out to everyone she possibly can tell who she thinks might be even the least bit interested._

_Cora looks back at me, alarmed at the suddenness of it all, and I shrug my shoulders at her; I have nothing to say. I’m in shock myself. She’s looking at me like she wants me to take control of the situation, but I’ve got nothing to say. This is what Mother wants, and if Cora wants Mother to like her then perhaps this is the best thing she could possibly do._

_Then again...I am almost positive that Mother isn’t asking Cora into the kitchen because she’s genuinely interested in knowing her. I know better._

_“Oh, my. I’d...I’d love to, Bernice, thank you kindly.”_

_Mother places her hand at the small of Cora’s back, and I look at the two of them and notice that Cora is at least five inches taller than Mother is, and that’s got to be strange for her as my girlfriend. I’d bet you anything that Mother’s not a fan of Cora’s height, and that was one of the first things she’d noticed. When Cora looks back at me for a little reassurance, something to tell her that she isn’t about to get eaten alive, I send her a shrug...I am not quite sure that she’s not being sent off to be eaten alive. For all I know Mother may spit her through the kitchen doors as a pile of half-digested bones._

_I wish she had a guitar here that I could play, or something, while I wait for them. I’ve got quite a bit of time now to myself and nothing much to do with it, and so I may just fall back on an old favourite: fantasising about Maisie. And with last night still so fresh in my memory I’ve got a whole new reel of material I’ve been inventing...as if I were doing it consciously. The fantasies, they flood me like a raging river through a valley town in a wicked storm. They beat me into submission at night and steal my days from me at times, and yet I would rather do nothing else at this moment._

_The first thing I do is wander around the sitting room and let my eyes feast upon the shrine to my dead father that’s plastered to the wall: many photos of him in and out of uniform, his army hat, his medals. All the things she kept hidden away from me for years until I found them and the letter explaining he’d been shot. Imagine that as a six year old boy, never knowing your father was dead. I went through life wondering when he was going to come home, and she knew the whole time and just...ugh. If I keep focus on this I’ll end up taking her to task for it in front of Cora, and that would just be no good. That’s not what we came here for, so I walk away from the shrine and look around at the rest of the ‘family photos’ that Mother has set up around the room, which incidentally contain very few actual photos of me...they’re mostly photos of Mother and groups of students she’d had over the years that she found especially memorable, but very few photos of me. I doubt very much that Mother is at all proud of the fame I’ve managed to get for myself._

_So finally I sink down onto the sofa and place a pillow in my lap as insurance in case I get an erection. I cross one leg over another, letting it dangle carelessly as I hug the pillow on my lap and let my mind wander. I go back over last night again and again, but this time it ends differently: I sneak into Maisie’s room while she is changing, and I come up behind her. She has no idea I’m there, she’s completely oblivious to the stench of my longing and desperation that smells so strong to me that I can hardly take it. I inhale deeply and ready myself for rejection as I take the plunge and wrap my arms around her from behind, and she begins to tremble...realising she’s been caught and taken. By now she’s realised it’s me as well, and she’s pleading with me to stop, but I promise her she won’t want me to once I’m done with her. I force her onto the bed and I hold down her arms, ready to ravage her and have my way, and when I look into her big brown eyes I see they’re afraid...but there’s a spark of arousal beneath the flames of terror that are raging in those beautiful eyes. I can see that even though she wants me...so desperate that she’s flooding with every gentle touch of my finger... she’s afraid to admit it to herself: afraid that she was wrong about me the entire time. Afraid that she can’t trust her own judgment. She’s 10 seconds from giving up all control, and I’m 10 seconds from readily accepting all of it, and taking her to Heaven because she cannot deny me._

_And this goes on for a fair bit, but eventually I’m interrupted by the wooden sound of the kitchen doors closing as the two women who step on my neck are on their way out carefully tiptoeing holding trays: Mother a tray of three steaming cups of tea, Cora a tray of sandwiches. So whatever they got up to in there they at least managed to prepare tea and lunch without killing one another. That’s a good sign. I didn’t think Cora would do anything aggressive at first, but I can’t trust my Mother, and I do not doubt that Cora would finish any fight someone else had started. From the very bleak and tightly wound look on her face: the wide, intense eyes, the way her mouth is set in a firm, straight line. I can tell Cora’s talk with my mother did not go as well as she had fantasised that it would when I told her we could do this. Her eyes dart over to where I am, and when they settle on me I feel like a trapped mouse in their cold, feline gaze. Something went wrong … no idea what ... and I suspect she may hold me responsible based on the severity of that look._

_Of course she does. Of course you do, Cora. I only warned you that this very thing would happen because I knew that it would._

_“Take that pillow off your lap, you barbarian. Let’s go,” Mother barks like a vicious fucking dog at me directly from the side of angry, serpentine eyes at myself and at Cora._

_Right in the jugular._

_I haven’t felt this humiliated in years. Life was so much better without her. I don’t think I will ever really forget that Cora pushed me into doing this to maintain an image of a perfect couple._

_Obviously I throw the pillow back down on the couch and take great care to heave an exasperated sigh just to rub it in her face. As expected this just amps her up as well, and she clears her throat while looking Cora right in the eyes and baring a pointed tooth smile. Sometimes the first sight of her face is a little disturbing: she is stabbing Cora on the chest with that piercing, arresting, and cold-as-steel glare._

_Cora places her tray of sandwiches on the coffee table, and Mother sets her down with a bit more confidence than Cora had. It’s likely the first time Cora’s set sandwiches on a table. It was Maisie’s too, so it’s not that out of the ordinary, I suppose. She stares with a very obvious timid hopefulness at Mother, and Mother completely disregards her, choosing instead to focus her venom on me. No matter, I’d rather it be me than Cora, anyway. Neither of us did anything to deserve it, but she will give it to someone and it might as well be me because Cora’s never gone through it before; I’m used to it._

_“So…” Mother hisses at us from behind a cup and saucer, “Where do you go to university, Cora? I don’t recall you telling me.”_

_Mother is very well aware of what she’s doing. I recognise that immediately. That means what she did is she looked Cora over once, saw that she looks very stereotypical and sort of vapid, and assumed she’d not gone to university. Which of course Cora has not gone to university, by the way, which I assume you had assumed. She goes on about wanting to be a makeup artist, so I’m not sure why one would go to University for that. And of course, not having gone to university as Mother did, that would become an immediate reason for her majesty to immediately reject Cora as a match for me. The thing is: I hate to admit it, but she’s right: Cora is a horrible match for me. I can barely stand her sometimes. There are times when Cora speaks to me and I just cringe and want to growl at her to shut the fuck up, but I don’t._

_“Oh, I haven’t gone to university. I’m working at a boutique in town right now, but I want to become a makeup artist.”_

_“I’m sorry. Pardon?”_

_Well, there’s that very unequivocally false politeness she’s perfected over the far too many years she’s been haunting this earth, and what an impact it made, because I notice almost immediately that Cora’s petals have wilted faster than they could even bloom for my mother. She barely took any time: she went right in for the kill immediately. Perhaps she was kind in there at first, although it didn’t seem that way by the way they both looked when they came in here. It’s possible though that my mother at least made an attempt to seem charming, as she’s able to do with so many other people in public, but never at home._

_“Well, I love to put my makeup on, and put makeup on my friends, and so I’d like to make a living doing it. It fulfills me, I suppose.”_

_I see the way Mother is scowling like a nasty old owl at Cora that way, and I’m a bit … no, really, I’m taken completely aback...by how very sudden and heinous it was. Maybe she’s more like a fierce old battleaxe. Yeah, that’s her. A battleaxe._

_“I see.”_

_Cora’s eyes dart to the floor with the speed of flaring daggers and I feel compelled to speak, but I have no idea what I should say. I have no idea what to talk about with these women. Whatever._

_“Mother, I’m going on tour next week. To a few cities in America. Just thought you might want to know that.”_

_“Good for you. What a shame. We sent him to architecture school, you know,” she states matter-of-factly to Cora as if it’s something one just tells someone about their child sitting right in front of them. “Could have been a professor; this young man was so brilliant, and he begged to go to architecture school. And you know the rest, don’t you, George?”_

_“Mother, don’t call me George, please? I haven’t been George in years.”_

_“I named you George. You will always be George to me. Anyway...we all know the rest. Could have been a professor, but you’re parading around America like a madman with a guitar. Good for you, ‘Roger’. Enjoy America.”_

_Ugh. What am I going to do after this? How am I ever to make this up to Cora? This is dreadful. It’s much more dreadful than I had ever planned for it to be, and I am feeling very much like getting up and leaving. There’s an unmistakable rumble of boiling anger in my belly, and it’s taking all I have inside me not to storm out of this house right now and_

_“I just thought you’d want to know I’m famous enough to tour in America. I’m pretty successful, but thank you for wishing me well. And I think it’s fine that Cora has something she wants to do that she loves.”_

_A small, appreciative smile beams on Cora’s face as I notice her eyes starting to grow damp with tears. Not enough for it to show to Mother, but enough that it could soon become that way._

_“Yes. Well, perhaps we should change the subject.”_

_And then a half hour followed where my mother Bernice Waters told Cora more embarrassing things about me. The time she caught me trying to play with some other lad’s father, and she dragged me away and scolded me later as if it was completely unreasonable for me to seek out father figures. And then there’s another half hour of my mother grilling Cora about her family and her school activities and friends, and right before we were due to leave Mother pulls me aside and lets me know on no uncertain terms that she’s disappointed in the choice of woman that I’ve made for myself. It’s overall a horrid experience that I regret ever allowing myself to go through._

_Why the fuck did Cora even have to ask?_


	68. Roger - New York City, June 2006 - Roger's Penthouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger is reeling after his fateful phone call with Syd, which would prove to be their final contact.

Of all the names I never thought I’d be confronted with again in my lifetime. 

Of all the names I fought so desperately hard to forget.

Of all the names I thought for sure I would escape from.

It had to be her, didn’t it? Of all the people in the world that I could have been smacked in the face with at this present moment in my life it had to fucking be Maisie, didn’t it? I worked so god damned fucking hard and destroyed my second marriage over my insistence on repressing her, among many other things still, but primarily the issue stemmed from all the drinking I did. I worked so fucking hard to forget, to put it all from my mind, but here she is like a battering ram threatening to beat it all down, to take down the fucking walls of my fortress in about three strikes. I hear her, I feel her battering with fury against me, and I’m overtaken by the undefeatable urge to submit to her power, and I cannot take it. She possesses and controls me like a demon, but I want her to. It’s intoxicating. Even now with the terror I feel, I only want to submit to her insistence upon making me crazy.

When I heard Syd’s voice on the phone my heart skipped a beat. It had been 20 years since we last talked, and hearing his voice again … it blew me away. It blew me so far away that I was already anxious when I heard her name. It was the worst possible way that I could have heard the name ‘Maisie’ that I could ever imagine: on the phone with the only man I have ever loved finding out that he’s dying, and that I will likely never see him again. I have been put in a position where I have been forced to accept that I’ll never be able to right all the regrets I live with that I ran away from Syd, that I was so terrified to be seen with him in public...and it led me to abandon him and live my life without knowing true love from a man or a woman. At the same time I have had to confront this terrible truth, I’ve also had to confront the terrible truth that is Maisie Wells. 

How the fuck long has it been now since I left the band? 

Let’s see: It’s 2006. I left in ...1984? 1985? The mid ‘80s. It took me about two years to lock it all up, so perhaps 1986 or 1987? And then I realised David was no longer with her, took comfort in that, and locked every single memory, every single moment of longing and despair all up in a steel box I thought would be impenetrable. 

How wrong I was. 

That steel was so penetrable that all it took for it to crush me like a tonne of bricks all while clutching it all together for both mine and Syd’s sake was the mere mention of her first name. Syd’s excited little giggle in the way he said her name was enough to wake everything up: to rouse every memory, every feeling, every desire, every pathetic trip to sit outside of a window and to send them all up to my surface like a fucking geyser, and now...now, with my finger still lingering over the buttons on my cell phone...all the steam is about to bubble and boil until it explodes. I can feel it about to come.

When one is about to have a panic attack, oftentimes they will feel a wrenching in their chest, like their heart’s been grabbed and the hand that’s grabbed it is now crushing their heart in its ever determined grip. Perhaps they’d feel the pangs in their belly...the pangs of nausea: a stomach threatening to reveal its contents at any moment. And the last thing that I personally feel when I’m on the verge of a panic is this sort of pulsing in my head. Perhaps it’s an adrenaline rush, or something, but it’s like something is pumping its way through my head, and now I can feel my chest seizing.

Fuck. If I don’t scream I’ll spew my guts out everywhere, and I am not about to call attention to myself that way. Granted, I’m at home alone...Anna’s gone to visit family. If I had to melt down now would be time, I suppose…but yet I can’t bear the thought of it. I know it’s coming, and that it must come and must pass, but somehow the thought of allowing it to do so is as unbearable as the pain that it will cause once it happens, anyway. 

No one is here to hear it, I realise, as I gave my cleaning woman the week off. She’d normally be stopping by today, as it’s a Thursday, but I let her have the week off to go on vacation, so what in the bloody hell do you know? It seems to be the exact right time to have the kind of meltdown I’ll be having in about two or three minutes. 

I can hardly breathe now. It’s like when I move to inhale I can’t make the breath come all the way inside my body. I can’t complete my breath; it’s ominous, like the way the leaves show their undersides right before a thunderstorm. Here I am gasping, clawing at my throat desperate for a full breath, but there is no deep breath in sight. The storm is rolling through as furious as it ever was, and I am only here to lie down and let it flatten me like a fucking trailer park in Kansas.

I’ve found my way to bed, and though I’m still in the clothes I’ve been wearing all day, boots and all, I climb in and pull the covers up over my head. I can’t bear to face the world right now. It’s best to stay where I am, right underneath these blankets safely tucked away from anyone or anything that might be able to see the tears I’m fighting and losing to, or the way I’m pulling at my hair to fight the aching need in my guts to scream...or anyone or anything who could ever hear that scream that finally comes, and it’s so loud I feel for a moment as if it’s left me in shock, if not deafened. But there’s a louder, more desperate scream that’s due to come, and that’s the one I’m fighting. That last one I just let out? That was the opening act. That was the finger in the asshole that came before I lost my virginity to Syd.

All that hard, grueling, self sabotaging work to put everything behind me for nearly 20 years, and it’s worth fuck all. It meant nothing, none of it. Not my marriage to Katrina, not my musical career...all of the things my drinking made me take a shit all over were fucked up for nothing. The entire undertaking was doomed from the beginning, and I should have realised it would be, because I should have also realised that I could never truly get away from her. If I had ever spoken to Syd again after when he came to the studio, especially sometime in the 90s perhaps, he would eventually have brought that all back out of me anyhow. I should have known it was a fucking stupid idea to try to repress memories of someone whom I had loved so deeply, and so passionately, and that one day all of that would just rear its ugly head all at once, but I was an idiot. I was an idiot, and I thought that drinking until I convinced myself there was nothing else would actually work, even though I have a deep enough understanding of human psychology to know that memories are never really gone, but just simply hidden for now. There was some part of me that I think even consciously knew and acknowledged just how stupid it woulld be to drink someone into a repressed memory, but all I knew at the time was: I had to get out of that band, she’d go with them, and I had to move on.

So the last time I thought about Maisie was in 1987 or so, and I was content to believe that she was gone after that, but here she is...ruining my day. What a familiar feeling this one is, the feeling of my entire day being sidelined by one woman. Here she is, again…. here’s Maisie trampling over what was left of the day I was beginning to put together for myself, making sure to kick up as much dust as possible and leave no stone unturned or demolished as she stampedes through my head. Or at least...at least the memories of her, they stampede through my head, for I’ve no idea how she looks now, or who she is, or what she’s been doing. I only have the memories. I’ve only got almost 20 years worth of memories, but I don’t have anything recent, and I don’t know where exactly to find it. 

What am I going to do with all of this information now that I have it? I’m certainly not going to be able to forget again; I think I’m pretty fucking screwed on that front. Even if it were possible I couldn’t do two solid years of that kind of drinking again, although I still drink too much. No, I think the repression was a once in a lifetime deal. I don’t think I’ll get that opportunity again.

Does this mean that she’s going to be at his funeral after he passes, though?

It does, doesn’t it? Of course it does. That’s exactly what it means. Whatever they’ve got going on over there, fuck them both for not inviting me and I can’t believe she’d go back to him. What was she thinking?

And you know what else her being at the funeral means, I suppose. It means that I won’t be able to focus on the reason I’m really there. Why would I ever get to mourn Syd like he deserves to be mourned? Why would I ever be allowed to have that, or to at least give Syd that after a life of neglecting him? The best idea for Roger Waters in particular when mourning an old flame and a dear friend would be to tack on seeing the woman I spent two fucking decades ruining myself for the first time, the one woman who had ever left me breathless and speechless before I met her, and the only one that ever has since. That’s the best idea...because anything else might be healthy and simple and not fucking heart wrenching.

I let that scream out just now, by the way: the one I said before was boiling up to the surface. I let it explode and carry my sanity away with it because I had no other choice. 

God, what must she think of me these days? Does she think of me at all? I’d imagine that she doesn’t. If I were a betting man I would bet with confidence that Maisie doesn’t ponder my existence for a second. If she listens to my music still it must only be to think back fondly on David or… or, I guess, Syd, but that seems so off the mark. The last time I saw Maisie, if Syd came up in conversation she calmly removed herself, but we were all very careful to temper our words about him whenever she was around. She never wanted to talk about Syd, or hear his name,or be around when we reminisced on old times. There were a few times she and David left parties because it was unbearable, but now she lives with him? She’s living with him?

We went in there and took her out, moved out all of her things, and protected her for years from anyone who might have anything to say to her about him. We never told a fucking soul for fear it would get out and someone would reactivate that trauma for her, but she’s fucking living with him? Does she realise how fucked up that sounds? It sounds like she’s lost her marbles in her older age. And yet let me guess - if I went to her and tried to smooth things over after all these years, and asked her to come back and give me another chance she’d laugh in my face, wouldn’t she? She’d laugh me right off and then probably give me money to pay me for making her laugh so hard just to rub the salt in the wound, but the bloke who actually hurt her in a way that she needed real therapy and medication for...that guy she’ll go and live with. I don’t want to even start to try and understand it. I never thought that what I did to Maisie was nearly as bad as what Syd did to her, and yet here we are...as usual, I’m alone without either of them, and the two of them are off doing god knows what together.

That scream is still coming, by the way. It’s been about a minute now of continuous screaming, but I think I’m finally at the end. I think that perhaps now I can stop screaming, but I’m going to stay under these covers and fight like hell against all the bullshit that’s got me by the balls right now. In fact, I reach between my legs just to check that they’re both still there: that’s how real the feeling of being kidnapped from my sanity is. I’m starting to physically check that I’m all there. 

In my bowels there’s a feeling settling in that is unlike any I’ve felt in years: a churning, a cramping, and along with that just more and more sweating. I’m sweating buckets; it’s so bad you’d think I had just been doing some kind of a heavy workout, but no...no, I haven’t done a workout. I’m just having a panic attack is all, haha. I’m just under the blankets in this awful, tacky penthouse apartment with the raised cathedral ceilings that Anna wanted before we got married. It was my wedding gift, but I’ve been so profoundly unhappy...as I’ve always been so profoundly unhappy. And yet now I long for the days when she and I were looking at apartments together, dreaming dreams, and I thought I might really be happy with someone, and I was still very well unaware of all of the pain I had no choice but to leave behind. 

It should come as no surprise to you, then, that I tell you this with complete, total, profound honesty: If I felt that I had a choice at all, I never would have repressed her. For a few years before I truly left I would wonder...because I knew I had to get out, I knew they were starting to hold me back...what am I going to do if I have to leave? What will happen to me and Maisie? And it kept me awake sometimes, trying to figure out a way to be able to have both my music and her. I’d toss and turn, write things down. It was obsessive. But I could find no other way.

So if I had a choice I would have kept on doing as I was doing for years until it killed me...which it likely would. She drove me to fucking madness. There are things I did...the stalking, the peeping...I had never done anything like that before, and nor have I since. That’s not who I am anymore, and it’s a part of my life that I really thought I’d never have to revisit. Do I feel remorse? Yes...yes, I feel remorse, but I don’t think I’d change a thing if I could go back. 

And yet here we are, curled up in a ball under a pile of blankets in a posh midtown Manhattan penthouse where I’m all alone...sweating, panting, desperate for breath: flustered, bothered, disturbed, despairing. Shocked. 

Driven to madness.


	69. David - Cambridge, 1969 - Syd and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David cheers Maisie up as she packs and stresses about seeing her parents.

_I have to say it’s a little amusing watching Maisie scramble about looking through all the clothes she asked me (as usual, but I’m not complaining) to take out of her closet, trying to find the exact right thing to wear to impress her parents when we visit them in a few days. She’s running about like a busy little mouse looking at shoes, dresses, blouses, trousers and skirts...and she’s decided that trousers are ‘out’ because her mother might not approve of them (really? Isn’t it almost the 1970s, not almost the 1920s? Could her mother really disapprove of trousers?), and so now she’s just moved on to skirts. On the vanity she bought in the guest room she’s got makeup, hair products, and perfume all splayed out in a line, ready to be picked to take with us to do whatever those products are supposed to do. I don’t think she needs any of it, but whatever. She’s free to do with her appearance as she wants. It’s not really what matters to me about her._

_I feel her eyes on me after I look away, and I’m not sure how I know, but it’s like an alarm bell goes off alerting me that she’s looking my way. When I look back at her I notice a look in her eyes that I didn’t notice before. Maybe she’s never had it, or maybe she has, and I just managed to miss it somehow. I didn’t see it when we danced together before the party or at the party, or at all since then... It seems to be completely new; if she’d given me a look like that before I would have remembered...I hope, at least. No, this is like nothing I’ve ever seen. She was giving me a look during the party that was new, too, but this one...this is something else._

_Her eyes are shining: two pools of sweet, dark honey waiting to be poured into my tea or drizzled on my toast. Her full, pink lips are parted like she wants me to kiss her, and if I had a little more courage I might, actually. I might really do it. I want to do it...I want it so badly that it’s really hard to stop myself sometimes from just pulling her into my arms. There’s a part of me that is ready to do it now and the consequences be damned. I’m terrified she’ll push me away, though, and that she’ll feel I’ve betrayed her friendship, and so I don’t do it...but I’m thinking about it as I stare deep into those two warm brown eyes. I can feel the corners of my mouth turn up in a smile as my cheeks heat up like a kettle. I’m blushing, and she’s noticed._

_“Are you okay?,” she asks me with a smile as she looks over a pink and white polka dot dress that looks very early ‘60s to me. I wish she’d just wear what she wears around the house, quite frankly. The fuss is all rather unnecessary. She looks so good without the makeup and the fancy clothes, but I appreciate them, too._

_“I’m alright. Just having fun watching you run around like a little speed demon,” I tease._

_“Oh, you are? Do you think I’m being crazy?,” she asks as she smooths a few wrinkles out of a powder blue day dress with a white belt sewn on around the waist. “What do you think about this one? Oh, I really hope it still fits. I bought it when I was at finishing school back before I met Roger, and I was a bit thinner then…”_

_“You do sound pretty mental,” I say as I get up and walk toward her, “Relax, silly. You’re gonna look smashing in whatever you wear. Don’t you worry about that dress fitting. You’ve got so many. And besides, does it really matter that much? It’s just your Mum you’re going to see. You don’t need to impress your Mum.”_

_In an instant her mood changes from scampering and nervous to rather frustrated and dumbfounded. She looks down her nose at me, purses her lips and shakes her head, then rolls her eyes, and then she goes back to fussing over the dress. For a few moments she looks over her clothing as if she’s taking inventory of everything she’s got, and what would make her mother most happy, and then she shrugs as if she’s given up and sinks down upon her suitcase. I watch as she leans her head into her hands, her elbows resting on her knees, and her whole body deflating. Her eyes are glued to the floor, the air around her cools down and I can swear I see a little black cloud rolling in and dumping itself all over her._

_“Your Mom is just your mom,” she says to me, and I try not to be offended by the little hiss I hear in her voice when she talks to me that way. I let it pass. Life’s too short to get all in a row about someone’s tone of voice._

_“What on earth does that mean, then?”_

_I laugh as I say this, only because I sort of rather like it when she gets indignant and stubborn like this, even though it can sting a little sometimes...like now._

_“I just mean that you have a pretty normal relationship with your mother, right?”_

_“I suppose so,” I say with a shrug as I think back with fond memories of my mother, who passed a few years ago, “but I do wish I had her around still. You’re lucky to still have yours.”_

_“I’m sorry, David,” she whispers as she buries her head in her hands and lets her gaze drift to the floor. “I didn’t know your mother had died.”_

_“It’s alright. It’s not your fault, or anything. Just remember that you only have one mother, you know, and one day she won’t be here. There’s always time to fix things.”_

_“Thanks. I mean, I know that, but if she really cared don’t you think she’d have tried to find me at all?”_

_“Well,” I start, sitting behind her on the other side of the suitcase so our backs touch, but I’m very well aware of how much weight I’ve added to it, “How do you know she didn’t send anyone to look for you? She said she had your aunt send out a search party.”_

_“I know, but...look, I’m sorry that I said that about your mother. I shouldn’t have. But don’t worry about giving me advice on this, okay? It’s just that I haven’t had a normal relationship with my mother at all. I know she didn’t really want me; it was obvious all my life. She’s pretty cruel, and narcissistic, and all about herself, and she expects so much out of me that I just can’t give her while never really making sure I was ever invested in anything in the first place. She could never go a day without putting me down or bullying me if she talked to me at all, and I just don’t want to go there and have her shit all over my appearance or whatever, or get angry that I’m not married yet, or get angry that I haven’t gone to school for anything yet if I’m not going to get married. It’s just so complicated.”_

_“That does sound pretty tough,” I admit, at a loss for how to help. “What can I do to help you feel better?”_

_“I feel fine, I’m just a little nervous about what to wear. I know what I’m wearing to the show the day before, but not to see my mother. Can you believe that? I can’t believe I’ve gotta think so hard about what to wear in front of my mom.”_

_“How about I distract you then? I’ve got some gripes with Roger I need to let out before we have to be stuck in a plane and a van with him so I don’t wring his stupid fucking neck.”_

_“I’m always up for hearing you gripe about Roger,” she answers, and I can hear her voice perking up, like maybe she’s smiling._

_“Good. Can you believe how he’s gotten on me about that part of Echoes I’m having trouble with? He insists I’m terrible at playing the guitar, but I don’t really think I am. Do you?”_

_She does not hesitate for a second before answering me, and she doesn’t miss a beat in her answer._

_“You’re an amazing guitar player. Roger’s just jealous because he couldn’t play the guitar half as good as you if he spent the next five years trying.”_

_“You don’t have to say that.”_

_“I’m not just saying that. You’re a really, really amazing guitar player. I wasn’t just saying that to blow smoke up your ass, you know. I mean it. Roger couldn’t even come close to being quite as good at it as you are.”_

_My heart skips a beat when I hear the irregular tone of her voice: she doesn’t sound like she’s teasing. She doesn’t have that girlish giggle that she adds to the end of her sentences when she’s teasing me. Her voice sounds stone cold serious. I thought I was pretty okay at the guitar, but I’d been having my doubts with all the shit Roger’s been giving me. It sounds like she really might mean it, though._

_“Th...thanks…”, I manage to stutter as I let out a nervous laugh I tried really rather hard to sort of quash before it came out of me._

_“You’re welcome. Half the issues Roger has with you, whatever they are, are because he’s jealous of you, anyway.”_

_If she only knew exactly how true that all were, but I’d rather she didn’t. After all, for as long as she hates Roger and has no idea how he feels there’s no way she’ll ever try to go back with him, and I’ve no reason to tell her._

_“I don’t know,” I say, and I try to find more words, but when I feel the way her back feels against my own, and how warm I can feel that her body is just by having our backs together I fear I can’t find any. I was in a real groove talking about that, and then she gave me that compliment, and now I feel well out of order. “Could be.”_

_That’s it, you dumb bloke? ‘Could be’? No witty retort? You’ve been great with the witty retorts lately, why’d that stop all of a sudden? Ugh. I don’t know why this got so hard again like that, but I just know that I’d give anything right now to gather up the courage to turn around, pull her in and kiss her until neither of us could take it anymore. I’m beginning to truly wonder what she would do if I did. What do you think? The thought is paralysing: I can’t move. I want to move, I want to turn around and I want to summon all the will I have to do exactly what my intuition is telling me I should do, but I don’t have the nerve._

_“Don’t worry about Roger bullying you. You’re gonna blow him away on this tour, and I bet you after he hears you playing he won’t say anything else about your guitar skills. He’s just projecting his insecurity onto you. That’s what Freud says.”_

_“Oh, yeah? That’s what Freud says, huh?”_

_“Yeah. Projection. It’s what insecure people do,” she says matter-of-factly._

_Finally I stand up, and when she realises that’s what I’ve done she joins me, and we find ourselves facing one another: both of us unsure of what to say and how to say it. I could be wrong, but what I am reading in her eyes is the same kind of weird confusion that I’m feeling. In a moment of daring, and I’m not sure where I found the courage to do this, I reach out and twirl a lock of curly hair around my finger, savouring every touch of its silky smoothness as I try to read her reaction in her facial expression. Her unmistakably wide, scared eyes are in contrast with the smile that’s playing around her lips fighting not to come out, but losing the fight and coming out anyway. Finally the eyes follow, and they crinkle at the corners as they join the lips in a big, embarrassed smile. I pause a moment before I drop her hair, holding onto it like I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with it (and I’m not...just as I’m not sure why I’m doing this at all, either, but since she’s not upset I don’t think I’ll stop). She follows suit and winks at me as she twirls a lock of my hair around her own finger and we stand, our hands grabbing at one another’s hair, like two idiots smiling and unsure of what we’re doing._

_“What’re you doing?,” I ask as I feel a smile taking over my entire face, making my feelings very obvious._

_“Exactly what you’re doing, “ she answers, her cheeks flushing scarlet._

_“Ahh, that makes sense, then. I thought you had been stricken by some strange hair grabbing illness, and maybe that’s what’s got you acting so mental on account of seeing your mother,” I tease as I stick my tongue out at her and tuck the lock of hair I was holding behind her ear. I can feel her tremble upon feeling my touch, and she reaches up to grab my hand, but she gives it one squeeze and then lets it drop. I stand stunned, breathless and timid in front of her in response, and I wonder what feelings are being betrayed by what I can feel are wide, fearful eyes. I’m not afraid, I wish I could tell her. I’m not afraid of you, I’m afraid of doing this wrong. I’m afraid of pushing you too far. I’m afraid of kissing you too soon._

_“What are...what are the sleeping arrangements for the hotels on this tour?,” she asks with a sudden monotone to her voice, her cheeks still flushed and her expression bothered, but only in the best way._

_I feel a sudden charge of sexual energy coming from her that I didn’t feel before, like she’s actively trying to fight an urge to have sex, and to say it piques my interest would be an understatement: I can feel myself growing hard underneath my skivvies. I want her, there’s no mistaking that for anything other than what it is, and when we lie in bed at night there’s a small part of me that’s sort of like ‘...why not try?’, but usually I can fight that off, although it’s becoming more and more difficult as the days roll by. I’m afraid that if it goes on too long sometimes I might start to have some more trouble. Roger used to brag about how often Maisie likes to have sex, but Syd did no such thing. Syd never talked about Maisie like that, but with Roger it came up so much that it started to get boring in addition to being totally disrespectful. He loved to brag about how he taught her to take one all the way down her throat, and I have to admit I’ve wondered about it, but I keep a very tight lid on those thoughts. I’ve only ever really let my mind wander onto it in the shower when I know I won’t need to worry about cleanup. It feels a little indecent to think about it as much as I don’t want to admit to you that I do, but it is what it is._

_As for the rooms? I told Roger in no uncertain terms a few weeks ago after what happened in France that he is no longer welcome to share a room with Maisie and I on the tour. I don’t want him ruining our time the way he did when we were in France._

_“I worked it so you and I have our own room. Roger is gonna room by himself. No more repeats of St. Tropez,” I reassure her with a big, friendly grin, trying to make light of what was really a rather disturbing incident for both of us._

_I wonder what she’s thinking, though, looking all flustered and reddened like that. She looks like she might be thinking the same thing I am, but then again...that could be wishful thinking._


	70. Maisie - Cambridge, June 2006 - Syd and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie confronts Syd's quickly failing health, and he makes a request of her. They both find they'd been avoiding talking about something with the other for a long time.

Syd isn’t well at all today, and he hasn’t been very well for the past few days. I hate to say it, and I hated admitting it to myself even more than I hate saying it, but it is what it is. He isn’t well. He hasn’t managed to get out of bed today even though around noon he did ask to try, but he just didn’t have the energy...he started getting drowsy soon after moving to the kitchen. We’ve been having more and more days like this lately, and the reality that is starting to set in for both of us is dismal, and terrifying. He hasn’t talked about it at length, but he knows exactly what’s going on. I think he isn’t talking about it because he realizes I’ve got to come to terms with it on my own before we can talk about it together, and I’m grateful for that because I’m having a really hard time. It’s all happening so fast, and I’d gotten caught up in how long it took for Syd to really, really start going downhill. I thought since it had taken so long we might get lucky, and we might get more time. I had dreams of spending Christmas with him: baking cookies, decorating the tree and singing songs together (if he’d sing), and I guess I got caught up in those dreams and really convinced myself we’d make it that long. I just have a sneaking suspicion now that we won’t make it. 

I’d give anything for more days like the good days: the days where we take walks, or I walk and he rides his bike, or we sit and plant our flowers in the garden together ‘for the next owner’. I want more days walking arm in arm in the botanical gardens where we had our first ‘date’ in 1968...I want more days lingering in the sunshine and wasting time, more days laughing at old episodes of Blackadder III, more nights spent deep in our sketching and coloring...but it seems there are more days like that behind us than ahead, and every time I’m confronted with it it becomes just a little more real to me. And the pain in his eyes on days like these...it’s enough to make me cry, and I have, often, although in private. I do not shed one tear in front of Syd. In fact, I do what I can to put on the bravest face I can put on for him, and pretend like I am sure this time it’s just another bad day, and that there will be more good days on the horizon. The truth is that I don’t know how many more there are...and that I don’t know how many more days we have in total...good or bad ones.

Lately Syd has been withdrawing more than usual. I know that he went through a long period of reclusiveness in his middle age, and most people know him as being very reclusive, but before the past month or two there really couldn’t be anything farther from the truth...at least for the short time I’ve been here. But last week everything kind of changed: Kathy called and asked to come by, but Syd said told me to tell her no, and he wouldn’t come to the phone to talk to her. He never declines any kind of invitation from his best friend; we’ve had a lot of nice visits with her since he started to get a little more withdrawn, but last week he actually turned her down, and he hasn’t returned any of the calls she’s made since despite my urging him to do so. He was pretty adamant about not returning the calls for now, and even snapped at me for continuing to prod him about it (and I accepted that, although it was a little hard to take). I have never spent much time with anyone who was dying before, and so I’m not sure what’s normal, but my gut feeling is telling me that this is part of the whole death process. The withdrawing, the weight loss, the loss of energy, the loss of appetite...all of that seems to me like it’s the start of the final highway of life, I guess, with the last exit being death. There’s a part of me, though, that is really hoping it’s his mental illness acting up … because that at least we could fix and it would mean we had more time. Even if he acted out and things got a little out of hand I’d be happier to hear that this behavior was as a result of his mental illness than as a result of… of just getting closer and closer to death, I guess, is the...that’s the likely reality of things.

He’s been sleeping almost all afternoon at this point, and now it’s around nine o’clock. The sun has finally set, he hasn’t had any dinner, and I’m making him some broth just to get something in his system. He hasn’t wanted to eat much today, either. He didn’t really touch his breakfast this morning, which was upsetting because he said he wanted pancakes, and I made them for him and put them on a tray for him to eat in bed. Usually he gobbles them right up and I’m back making more within 10 minutes, but this morning...this morning he barely took two bites before he wanted to turn right back over and sleep again. I can’t remember the last time he behaved like this. I know there have been other times that he’s refused food, but this time there’s a lot more finality to it. It’s like it’s got a whole different vibe now. He’s been sick since I got here: there’s been a lot I haven’t talked to you about because I really have only wanted to focus on what’s been pleasant about being here with my baby...the laughs, the romance, the sweetness...but there’s a lot you don’t know. I have admittedly kept a lot from you: I really don’t like to confront some things, and this was a major one. If you feel I’ve left you out of that part of Syd’s and my story I apologize, but I’m telling you now.

So while his broth is heating up, and before I go and wake him to try and get him to eat it, I’ll tell you a little bit about the darker parts of our reality here on St. Mary’s Circle in the old rowhouse with the deep blue door. I’ll tell you a little bit more about the hardships and the tribulations, and the pain and the things that I’ve been fighting so hard not to tell you about because I couldn’t face them. But now that it’s all happening so suddenly I’ve got no choice but to deal with it all, and so the best way to do that is to talk about it with someone. Since you’ve always listened, and you’re still here to listen, I think I can finally open up to you about this.

The first thing to strike me as alarming were all the side effects of the chemo. Sometimes they didn’t last long: they’d fade within a few weeks, and then he’d have to go for the treatment again so he’d have to go through all the side effects without a long break. He didn’t always have the same side effects; he was able to regrow a little hair, we didn’t have a lot of issues with infections and really any problems with his heart. What we did have was a lot of vomiting, a lot of fatigue, a lot of gastric issues and even more nausea and vomiting. I have eased Syd through vomiting episodes more times than I can tell you, heartbroken by the way he’d groan after every empty thrust of his guts to expel more and more stomach contents that simply weren’t there. I’ve grown so used to the smell of puke that it doesn’t repulse me anymore, and the same for him. Rosemary once came over and remarked that our entire house stunk of spew without a bit of hesitation or consideration of why exactly that might be, and I have to say that Syd and I didn’t even notice. 

His headaches when he’d finish with his episodes were debilitating, and a few times we took him to the hospital for his low potassium levels and dehydration. When he couldn’t keep water down I knew I had no other choice but to take him. Chemotherapy was so stressful for Syd that to tell you the truth Peter Pan became our go-to movie after every session. He would often fall apart emotionally, and sometimes he’d get short with me, and sometimes he’d completely isolate himself, but that was rare. Most of the time Syd really just needed to be comforted, to be held. 

After a while I grew to become familiar with the chemotherapy side effects and that stopped being so disturbing. I had to be strong for him; I didn’t have the time to focus on being afraid. And there was a long period of time where he was still his vibrant, sunny self who could still do the things he loved to do, but then one day I noticed when we were sitting next to one another on the couch that Syd’s thighs were half the size of my own. And as much as I tried to compartmentalize it, and to focus on how in so many other ways Syd was still so alive it was at that moment when it became really difficult to ignore. 

He was so skinny, and so frail, and so often complained of pain in his back and his stomach, and I gave him so many massages and so many baths and so many pills to ease the pain. After some time though it was becoming really apparent to me that it started to work for him less and less as time went on. The closer to the end of April that we got the less the massages soothed him, the less the baths helped him relax, and the more pills he needed to take to feel relief. I gave in and started giving him more of his benzos when the other stuff stopped working, as afraid as I was that he’d get hooked. He’d wake up coughing at night: a loud, hacking, dry and very obvious pained cough sometimes on and off for hours, and I’d bring him endless glasses of water, but they never helped when his coughing got that bad.

Anyway...now that that’s out (and I could still go on, but the broth is ready, and the kettle is whistling) I’m putting the steaming broth in one of his weird wooden bowls and dropping an ice cube and some ice chips in it so he can eat it right away. I add some salt and some garlic powder for flavor, because he’s really big on taste, and completely ruin his tea with milk like he likes. Now I’m headed towards our room, and when I open the door I switch on the light and Syd immediately groans and turns over onto his stomach and pulls the pillow up over his head. 

“Please tell me when you’re putting the light on, Maisie...it’s very shocking.”

“I’m sorry, baby. You’re right. Next time I’ll tell you first,” I say as I rest the tray down on my night table and crawl into bed next to him. The first thing I notice when I slip my arm around his chest is just how many of his ribs I could count if I tried. There’s grooves between each and every rib: that’s how thin he is. I move my hands down to where his ribs end, and I notice that I can sort of let my fingers drift under them, but not enough to make him uncomfortable. What is left of his stomach hardly feels like it’s fat, but instead it’s just kind of squishy loose skin hanging off of a body that’s becoming concave. When I let my hands slide down his body to comfort him I feel his hip bones jutting out away from his waist, and it’s such a stark contrast to the Syd I saw for two seconds in 1974: the one who had become so, so chubby. 

“Did you bring me broth?”

“Yes, I’ve got it right here on a tray with some tea for you. I put an ice cube in it so you can eat it now, so why don’t we get you upright so you can eat?”

“Thank you,” he ekes out with a yawn as I pull the pillow off his head, and he turns over. 

When he looks at me I am blown away by the adoring and gentle look in his deep brown eyes. He reaches up to tuck my hair behind my ear and I place my hand on his and bring his palm to my lips. I take a moment to linger on the way I feel when I touch him, when I kiss his palm, when I stare into his eyes, because he won’t always be here to do this with. 

I place the tray on his lap, and when he tries to pick up the spoon I see his hand shaking. Fearing he’s gonna spill it on himself I take the spoon from him, scoop some broth onto it and push it into his mouth. He looks down at our bed, embarrassed by how I’ve got to feed him.

“You don’t need to feel ashamed about needing my help to eat,” I reassure him, and he glances back at me with an appreciative half-smile.

“Thank you, my Maisie. It feels good to have something hot in my mouth,” he admits, “even though I’m not at all hungry. It’s the oddest feeling, not being hungry.” 

“Well, it’s good just to get something in you, anyway. I’ll bring you your meds once you’re finished eating.” 

“I want to talk to you about something first,” he says so quietly that it sounds like a whisper, but it’s not that soft. 

His tone is somber and earnest, and he reaches for my hand. I place the spoon back down into the broth and let him take my hand, and he squeezes it and brings it to his lips. When I feel his lips drift against my skin while he stares into my eyes with that sad, haunted look...and I notice the tears gathering in his eyes I bring my other hand to his cheek and let my fingers drift over it. 

“You can talk to me about anything,” I say with a smile.

“Well, there are a few things,” he says as his voice begins to tremble. “I know...I know that it’s coming. I have been living on borrowed time, you know, as that old doctor said. I haven’t got much time left at all; I feel as if I may begin to pass at any time, and I think it’s time for me to end treatment and just focus on being comfortable. It’s been rather difficult to make this decision, but it’s what I want. But I don’t want to go, Maisie…” 

Just like I had a feeling he would, he bursts out into tears, and soon after he starts I decide it’s better just to reheat the broth and tea and move it back to the night table with a swiftness that makes me feel surprised that the whole thing didn’t fall on the floor by accident. I take him in my arms as fast as I put the tray down, and I squeeze his fragile, thin body close to my own.  
“It must be very frightening to know that,” I affirm, and I start to stroke the back of his head. I kiss his cheek and he clutches at me.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” he says, “I just...well, you know how long I waited for you...you know how long I waited, and we are finally together just as we always should have been...and we have not had as much time as we should have..and now I’m going...I’m going to die, Maisie. I wanted us to have so much more time than we will probably have, in all reality, and I am afraid that we may not. I waited so long for you, my Maisie...and I don’t want to go away at all. I want to be here for the next 25 years until we can go together so I know you’ll be in Heaven with me, and I won’t have to go another moment without you for the rest of all eternity. We are for always, but now I feel I’m being torn from you far too soon...and I just don’t ever want to go while you’re still alive.” 

I freeze as I notice the telltale signs that I’m about to burst into tears: eyes clouding with mist, a quivering lip, a lump in my throat that makes me feel like it’s gonna explode. My belly sort of rises up into my chest and I can feel that heave of a sob ready to just come out and spew itself everywhere, but this isn’t about me. I can break down later; Syd needs to break down right now, and so I take a long, difficult breath, and I force every bit of that nasty, snotty sob back down into my body. Before I know it I’m clutching my Syd so close to me that I’m afraid I might hurt him, but the more I squeeze him this way the more he starts to breathe a little slower, and a little slower, and then he coughs...and he coughs one more time, and then he’s stopped crying. So I let him loose a little, but I don’t detach because he doesn’t. His arms are squeezing me still, and we stay this way until eventually, he pulls away.

Now it’s time for me to tell him the truth. For so long now I’ve been playing into the ‘let’s just not think about it’ thing, but now that he’s come to me and told me this it only feels right to go where Syd is leading me.

“I don’t want you to go, either, baby. I want you right here with me for so, so much longer. I want to be by your side until I don’t have any more life left to live, but that’s...baby, I think you’re right that it’s not going to be that way. And whatever you want to do with your own body and for you to find peace is exactly what I want for you, so if what you want is to stop your treatment we can call your doctor in the morning, okay? We’ll do whatever you want to feel at peace.”

“Thank you…,” he whispers as more and more sobs flow from his mouth, making his words shaky. “I have been wanting...to tell you for a few weeks now, and I’ve been so afraid that it would hurt you that I haven’t said anything. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I haven’t told you; it’s felt so bloody awful keeping it from you, but I was so scared of making you cry.” 

Well, thank goodness I swallowed that sob.

“I support you in anything you think is going to make you feel better.”

“Do you promise that ...that it can happen at home? I don’t want to be in a hospital surrounded by people I don’t know. I just want it to be you and me.”

“Not Rosemary?”

“No. She’s not my Rosie anymore. I don’t like the way she talks to you, Maisie, and something seems off about her. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t feel right at all around her now, and if I have to die I want it to be … a proper death. I want it to be very peaceful; I don’t want anything here that’s going to make me nervous, and Rosie makes me nervous now.”

It’s not that I think this is funny, really, but I start laughing anyway. Syd pulls away, and he stares at me like he’s hurt...so instinctively, I stop laughing. I hate to see that pain in his eyes.

“I’m not laughing at you, baby, I promise. I think I’m laughing because I’ve been thinking the same thing for months now and have been keeping that from you!”

That’s when I notice a smile playing at Syd’s lips, too, and then he starts to rumble with laughter. For the first time today Syd seems like himself.

“So we’ve both been keeping things from each other, then, and feeling bad about it?”

“I think so,” I admit as I reach out and stroke his cheek and his earlobe. 

“Rosie makes you nervous, too?”

“She doesn’t really make me nervous as much as she makes me frustrated and angry,” I say, and I smile as I say it because even though I’m finally being honest I really don’t think that I need to convey the full force of my hatred for his sister. She is, after all, still his sister.

“I thought that might be the case, but you’ve done very well with restraining yourself. I think most people might not know.”

“Thanks. That means a lot,” I say with a laugh as I rest my head in my hands and shake my head. “I try to keep it under wraps, but I was afraid there were a few times where I may have slipped. It’s been difficult, but never mind that. If you want it to be just you and me here when it’s…” I stop, and I catch myself about to melt into a puddle of tears again and I take another deep breath before continuing, “...when it’s time, then that’s exactly what it’ll be, and don’t worry about upsetting your sister because I’ll just have to be the one who tells her.” 

“Nah,” Syd says as he motions for me to please hand him the tray, and so I set it on his lap and this time he’s able to spoon the broth into his own mouth. When he’s finished he wipes his lips with the sleeve of his shirt and shrugs. “It ought to be me, yeah? I’m grateful you’d do that for me though, because it’s going to be a right kerfuffle to tell her, but I ought to do it myself, Maisie. She would be so cross with me if she thought I made you do it for me. I think she’s real jealous of you, I do. She used to be top banana in my life, and I will always love my sister, but she can’t hold a candle to you, of course.”

“It’s not a competition,” I reassure him as I lean in and brush my lips against his. He smiles as our lips touch. “We both love you very much in different ways.” 

“I taste like chicken broth,” he giggles as he returns my kiss, and when we pull apart I get lost in the light in his eyes. 

I savor every ray of blinding, iridescent light that flows from them like they’re coming from the sun, enjoying every second that he’s staring into me like he’s slowly giving light to every part of my being. As usual, I cannot resist him; I am powerless against the pure, unsullied, brand new kind of love in his eyes when we stare at each other this way, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. The only thing I’d ever change is our circumstances. If I could spend the next 20 years staring into these eyes I could forget everything else that had ever worried me. 

“That’s okay,” I say as I grab onto his face with one hand and squeeze his chin. “That doesn’t bother me one bit.” 

“There’s...there’s one other thing,” Syd whispers as his eyes meet mine again, with a timid, but serious tone to his voice. 

His demeanor clouds over like there’s a little gray storm rolling in; it’s not dangerous, but it is certainly foreboding. There’s a gloomy cloud cover that I really hate to see there, and maybe a little bit of a crisp, uncertain breeze.

He slurps the last bit of his broth and lets out a long, long exhale, preparing to make himself vulnerable somehow, and it’s evidenced by the downcast eyes and his bottom lip jutting out just enough. I respect and love Syd so much for his ability to be refreshingly honest and true to who he is. There are not so many people in the world that are as genuine and as untouched by cynicism while still having suffered so much. There is no one in the world like him.

“Anything,” I whisper as he takes up his mug and raises it to his lips, sipping his tea with a grateful smile. Then he shrugs: just a little reluctant raise of bony shoulders and one corner of his mouth lifted up in a smile that strikes me as almost sad.

“This is so terribly hard for me to tell you, so please...please, if I have trouble...be patient.” 

“I have all night, my love,” I reassure him with a gentle smile and a stroke of his cheek.

Syd takes a moment to prepare before he continues speaking. A moment or two with no words seems to pass before he works up the nerve to talk, and then he swallows and closes his eyes as he starts to speak.

“Well...first, I have a question. Have you...Maisie...have you thought about David Gilmour since you’ve been here?”

Is this a trick question? I’m unsure how to proceed, and so I don’t. For a few seconds I’m frozen, staring blankly at Syd, trying to formulate a response that won’t hurt his feelings. The unvarnished, brutal truth is that I’ve thought often of David while I’ve been here...especially when I have stopped to think that he probably is not all that far away from where I am....but I have thought significantly less about David since I’ve been here than I ever have since I left him. I have tried as hard as I possibly can to put David from my mind, and the closer Syd and I got the less often I found myself letting my heart and mind drift toward David. So it wasn’t often, but after 20 years of longing, and 20 years of only ever really giving my heart away once (and having that once be now), it’s proven to be a little difficult to make the feelings stay gone. I find myself looking down at our white organic down comforter that Syd’s wrapped himself in, feeling ashamed of the fact that while I’ve been here, and while I’ve fallen so deeply in love with Syd all over again, I have also...usually late at night when Syd is asleep and I’m sitting in the living room reading or trying to get MSNBC to load on Syd’s computer...let my mind wander to David and what he might be doing, and whether or not he’s also thinking of me. I hate it, and I hate myself for it, and every time I do it I feel so guilty I have trouble sleeping. But to admit that to Syd? That’s gonna take a ton of courage, but damn it, he deserves it. I don’t think there’s any other choice to make but the one I’m making.

“I...I’m...well, if I’m being honest, Syd, yes. Yes, I have thought of David since I’ve been here. But it’s...” 

Syd places a hand up in front of me to stop me from speaking, and he smiles at me. It’s not at all the reaction I expected when I swallowed all of my pride and my shame and laid myself bare in front of him like that...but I’m certainly relieved to see it. 

“You don’t have to explain…”

“No, no. Syd, I think I should,” I say as I reach out and hold his hand. His eyes rise to meet mine, and I notice him starting to laugh. He manages to choke it down while I start to talk, but he’s not taking me seriously. “It’s just...it’s less...it’s significantly...what?,” I start to erupt into giggles as I end the sentence because I notice him shaking his head at me.

“I don’t feel threatened by it. I just don’t like David is all: didn’t before I met you, and don’t now.” 

“David got you your royalties, Syd…”

“I know that, and that’s why...that’s why it doesn’t matter to me. And it also doesn’t matter because…” 

Syd stops, he takes another very artful, measured and firm breath, and I notice his eyes misting as he smiles at me. I could swear the sun was leaking through the blinds, but that’s just his very special energy.

“I just want to know that you’re being properly cared for and loved when I’m gone, and I know David will do that, Maisie. I want you to see him. Please. I know he’s coming to my service because I’ve asked Rosie to invite him so you will see him there. I don’t feel threatened by it at all; I know you had something very special with him, and I know it doesn’t change anything. I don’t care how you go about it; just please see him and please make sure he takes care of you.” 

The rush of adrenaline when he says those words so nonchalantly like that...I don’t know if I can adequately describe it to you. I feel like he’s pulled the floor out from under me, and he actually looks happy about it! It’s like in the old Looney Tunes cartoons when the character suddenly discovers that they’re running on nothing but air, and then they stop and look at the camera for a second before just crashing right into the ground into a little cloud of dust. 

“You...you want me to…”

“See him. Speak to him. Do what you need to do. I just want to make sure that you are taken care of.” 

“I can take care of…” I start to say with a wilful defiance that even I’m a little embarrassed by.

“I know you can, but you shouldn’t have to. You’ve been taking such good care of me for awhile now and so you need somebody to take care of you too, and that’s what David is good at, I think. And you never should have left him in the first place, but I’m obviously at least sort of glad you did,” he snickers as he sticks his tongue out at me. 

I pull him into a tight embrace and after a few minutes, I pull him close to my chest and I sit on my knees to turn my head up and give him a kiss. His earlobes are soft and velvety when I roll them in between my fingers, and his eyes are so innocent, and so pure. There’s another time to think and talk about David, but right now this is the only place where I want to be.


	71. Cora - Cambridge, 1969 - Roger's Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora confronts Roger on the way home from his mother's house.

_Well, that was far more dreadful than I could have ever possibly imagined. Every last second of that was bloody awful. I’ve never sat through something so distressing, intolerable, humiliating, unpleasant and terrifying in my life, and it’s made me completely rethink my entire relationship with Roger. I do hope you understand why it would make me rethink it; I feel so terribly guilty over it, I do...something like this should only reinforce my love for him. After all, now I understand why he is how he is...why he won’t let me in, why he’s afraid to be vulnerable. Now I understand why he can be so harsh and critical...why he can’t commit. It all makes sense now, and I do feel as if I should probably feel more endeared toward him, and I’m simply not feeling that way, and that makes me feel so terribly guilty._

_I feel even more guilty when I glance at Roger out of the side of my eye while he’s driving. His eyes are completely on the road. He’s not looking at me at all, but I can see just from the quick glance I shot his way how devastated, humiliated, angry and hurt he is. It’s very obvious that his mother’s cruel, heartless, senseless and really deluded words have broken his heart, but he won’t say that. He won’t communicate with me at all, I realise, and we could go the rest of our lives without talking about it if it were up to him. But I don’t think I can live that way. I don’t think it’s at all proper to go through something like this in a relationship and just not talk about it. He deserves to know how I feel._

_It takes everything I’ve got to swallow my fear and finally speak up to Roger. It’s been very hard to tell him when he’s hurt me and when I’ve been angry or upset with him since he’s almost impossible to talk to about anything difficult, even when he’s at his best and feeling his most positive. This is going to be even harder than normal because he’s so hurt and embarrassed already. I take a deep breath and twiddle my thumbs a little bit before I open my mouth to speak, preparing for him to snap at me, or go crazy behind the wheel, or pull over and throw me out and be completely done with me. Whatever happens happens, I suppose. What matters right now is that we have to have this conversation, or it could spell the end of our relationship. And I’m not entirely sure what Roger wants, but I know that what I want is to be with him, and so this is what I have to do to make sure it happens, even if it’s going to give me such dreadful anxiety to have to do it._

_“I think we should talk about what just happened,” I am barely able to force out as I stare out the car windshield and watch the rain beating down on it with a fury that makes it seem like the weather is reacting to our situation on purpose._

_Roger’s eyes roll back into his head for a second. He takes a deep, exasperated breath that might be hinting that he wants to yell at me, but he’s fighting the urge, he shakes his head and I watch his lips purse while he juts out his chin. He’s so cross with me, and all I said is that I wanted to talk about this rather mental thing that we just went through together. I’m so bloody sick of him being cross with me for trying to have a deeper connection to him!_

_“I think perhaps it’s better to put it behind us and move on, forget it ever happened. Forget you ever fucking talked me into meeting with Pauline and having her humiliate me for hours in front of you. Just so you could feel like you and I have a ‘future’. You only thought about yourself. In fact, you often think only about yourself, and I’m growing tired of it.”_

_“Me? I only think of myself? That’s the pot calling the kettle black if I’ve ever heard it!”_

_“Oh yeah? Is it? Why’d you force me to take you to my mother’s fucking house, then? Did you really think at all of me when you fucking steamrolled over me and anything I might have wanted? Or were you just thinking about yourself, and maintaining the bourgeois facade of the proper relationship? We could have gone on bloody fine without you meeting my mother!”_

_“I asked to meet your mother because I’m in love with you, you fucking stupid prat!”_

_And with that admission he suddenly goes quiet, and then he lets out another long, exasperated breath...and he doesn’t say anything. He just shrugs and keeps his eyes on the road: no reassurance, no ‘I love you too’...nothing. He just ignores me._

_The rain beats down upon the car; I can hear it banging on the roof like a million little bullets waiting to penetrate the car and rain down upon us. Hell, that might make this miserable mess a little bit better. At least then we’d have a common enemy, although I think we should in this instance, too…_

_Finally, when Roger speaks, I pray that he’s about to say something that will ease my worries, but he doesn’t._

_“So much for that then, hm? When you are ‘in love’ with someone as you say you are with me, you don’t force them into things that are going to harm them! You should have listened to me when I said you would hate my mother and want nothing to do with her! I know her, and you don’t, and I know firsthand how dreadful she is...as you can plainly see. Did you like seeing me humiliated like that? Do you know what she said about you to me?”_

_He didn’t say he was in love with me. In fact, he hasn’t said he loved me since that first time he said it during sex...not once. I haven’t said it to him in quite a bit, because he only ever just kisses me after I say it. He doesn’t say anything, ever, or even grunt or even smile. Roger never smiles these days._

_“No, Roger, I don’t know what Dear Old Mummy said to you about me, but I can very bloody well guess.”_

_And then a few deadly, silent moments pass by. I’ve gone back to staring out the windshield, gazing at the rain beating down into sheets on the road. It must have been five minutes by now, since we’re back at Roger’s house staring at it sitting there like an old fortress, which is sometimes how being there feels. It’s like forever while he lets the car idle, also staring out the front window, and his eyes are focused on the rain beating down on the grass in his very quaint little front yard. He huffs an impatient, indignant, and very curt sigh as his eyes roam over the water pooling in the pothole he never fixed._

_I decide to keep a stiff upper lip and press on with attempting to convince my stupid, thick-headed boyfriend to actually communicate about this with me instead of hiding from it and stepping into his studio to sulk for a few hours. That’s what he always does: he just goes into his studio and I hear him trying to sound halfway decent singing something that’s meant for David. Never a word for me, or a kiss, or anything. Every time I try to talk to him this is the same thing he does every time, and it’s absolutely mental!_

_“So I suppose you’re dying to tell me then,” and I am just blown away by the way it drips from my mouth like poison or something. I dare say I may hate him right now. There aren’t many moments where I hate Roger, but this is one of them, and I could kill him right now. I could take his beautiful little head and smash it in with a sledgehammer, and I would regret it later, but in the moment it would feel so satisfying._

_“Trust me, Cora, you do not want to hear it. It will hurt your feelings far too much for me to tell you,” he says in a way that I can tell is a challenge to make me beg him to tell me what she said, which I will not do, because I have dignity and I will not beg a man for anything, least of all whatever nasty things his cow of a mother has to say about me._

_“Well, you realise that now you have to tell me,” I spit back at him. I’m tired of the stupid games. I know exactly where he learned it from, but he ought to know better by now. He’s almost 30 years old, for goodness sake! If he’s going to tell me, he’d best tell me instead of trying to manipulate me into begging for it._

_“Do I really? What are you going to do, torture me? I don’t have to tell you anything, and we don’t need you feeling hurt, do we? Need we revisit the last time that happened?”_

_The last time that happened? You mean likely last week when you slammed the door on me trying to say hello to you when you were practising? Or the week before where I wanted to cuddle after sex, and you just rolled over and went to sleep? What does he know about the last time I was hurt? It’s not as if he’s ever asked._

_“Joke’s on you then, Roger, as I already am feeling hurt!”_

_The air inside the car grows cold as I can feel the tension spreading like a magic slew of ice between us, and I turn my head to stare this time out the passenger side window, again at the rain beating down into sheets on the ground...a little earthworm washed out of the dirt wriggles with confusion like he’s trying to find his way back under. Sort of reminds me of Roger trying to navigate his way through life. If he won’t talk to me then I am just going to have to go home._

_“I’m leaving, Roger, I’m leaving right now. I am going to go home and I’m going to think about our relationship, and whether or not I want to be in it at all. You’re so bloody closed off, you’re lucky I’ve stayed around this long. Sometimes I wonder if I hate myself, or something, the way I waste my time with you! You can sit with your thumb up your ass, for all I care, you fucking ninny arsemonger, and I’ll let you know my decision by morning.”_

_Getting out and slamming the car door makes me feel powerful like Wonder Woman. I can picture myself now twirling like Linda Carter and winding up in a red and gold bodice and tiny little blue knickers with white stars on them, and sporting knee high red and white boots with a tasteful heel. I’m throwing my lasso around like a silly American cowgirl, totally abusing the thing, and then it’s like the lasso works: Roger has caught up with me and he’s standing right in front of me, sopping wet with rainwater, his hair hanging in drenched tendrils around his face._

_His eyes are wide with fright, his lips pursed, and his brow furrowed, and he reaches for me and grabs my shoulders with both hands. I go to slap his hand away, but then he pulls me into a very tight embrace, and immediately I start to feel myself wilting. Wonder Woman has shrunk away, off to possess the body of a much more worthy bird than me. I should fight him off, tell him to fuck himself and go home, but I don’t. I can’t. I realise as he’s holding me close to him for the first time since he’s … been back to himself...that I didn’t really want to go, I just wanted him to do exactly what he’s doing. And now that he’s doing it, I don’t feel so cross anymore._

_“I do love you, Cora. I know that I...that I don’t say it nearly enough, but I do love you and I don’t want you to go. We can talk about this inside, let’s just go in and have a bath and get dry. We can talk about this until we’re blue in the face if you want to. Just come inside.”_

_And just like that my inner Amazon warrior is dead before she was ever really born, but I don’t know if I mind...I think I’m rather happy it turned out this way._


	72. Cora - Seven Oaks, Kent - June 2006 - Cora's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora and Judy enjoy one another on a beautiful morning, but they are interrupted by someone Cora never wanted to hear from again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

It was only a half hour ago that I woke up to Judy stroking my hair and my lips, and immediately when my eyes opened I started to feel my pussy flood with excitement. I started to shiver and then like lightning, she had me on my back. I stared up into her radiant pine wood eyes that sparkle with the light that glows from inside her, completely taken with the sight of my very own goddess who I am lucky enough to live with and wake up to every day. 

And now we’re here: I’m lying helplessly on my back, sweating from every pore into our white Egyptian cotton sheets as she circles her tongue around my clit while I jerk and twist my body in pleasure. I take a moment to glance down at her wild curls bobbing this way and that as she eats me just like I did for her before, and I reach down to grab a hold of all that luscious, perfect hair as a scream escapes my lips. My toes curl and I find myself squeezing her head with my thighs as my body erupts in an orgasm: the kind of orgasm I never got to have before I met her. 

“Yes, yes, Judy…,” I moan in between gasps for breath like I’m coming up for air. I throw my arms over my head as she keeps going at me, and before I know it I’m seizing and shaking from the loss of control to my pleasure. I’m barely a person in control of my own life: I am at the mercy of my orgasm...this precious, treasured orgasm that I denied myself for so, so long. 

After what feels like an eternity but still not long enough Judy stops and she kisses my hip bones, up my stomach and over my breasts, and I shiver as her tongue circles one of my nipples. 

I take another fistful of her coarse, coily hair in my hands and pull on it as she lets her tongue drift back down my body and I feel it flicking against my clitoris. Unable to keep another orgasm at bay, I wrap my legs around her hips and squeeze, pulling her closer to my body, encouraging her willing tongue. My body explodes in a fit of hysteria, quaking and sweating as she goes at me until I can’t continue anymore and I collapse, and all my limbs fall limp and useless onto our mattress. 

No one has ever loved me like Judy does, nor have I ever loved anyone the way I love her. When finally she comes up for air I grab onto both sides of her face and pull her in for a deep kiss, caring not even a little that I can taste myself in her mouth. She returns my kiss as she buries her hands in my messy bedhead hair and I hear her giggle as she kisses my cheek.

“How many was that? Did I set a new record?,” she teases. She always has this way of teasing me for the way I never orgasmed before I met her, but I love it. It just reinforces how special she is to me.

“Every time is a new record, babe, as you just keep getting better and better,” I whisper in her ear as I playfully bite her earlobe.

Judy smiles as she swats me away, and I use all the strength I have left to push her onto her back and mount her, ready to give back everything she just gave me, but that’s when my cellphone rings. 

Initially I ignore it and go right to massaging my lover’s large, round breasts, but she shakes her head and urges me to answer, knowing I’m waiting for a call from a potential storefront supplier. I sigh a heavy, exasperated sigh, and complain under my breath that they’d pick now to call instead of later. Doing too much business will be the death of me, I swear. 

I answer the phone with a curt, annoyed “Hello?” to let the caller know I’m unhappy that they interrupted my lovemaking. Normally I would answer the call with a more cheery tone of voice, but I’m really craving Judy’s strong, firm body right now, and I’ve answered the call already ready for a fight when I hear who’s on the other line, and now I’m even more ready for a fight:

Because for some reason, it’s my ex-husband.

His voice on the other line is shaky, anxious and terrified: a tone of voice I’ve never heard him use before. I almost feel pity for him...almost, but in an instant he ruins that when he starts to speak.

“Cora...I need you to do something for me,” he almost moans with agony. 

“Roger?”

“Yes…,” he continues in a slow drawl as I can almost hear his heart racing with anxiety through the phone. It almost sounds as if he’s been crying. He’s hyperventilating; it sounds serious. Something must actually be wrong for him to first of all call me for any reason and second of all for him to sound so panicked. Now I feel as if I’ve got to do something to help him.

“What is it? You sound like you’re in quite a state.” 

I turn to Judy, and I notice that she’s pulled the covers up over herself like she thinks he can see, and then she sits up. Her eyes are concerned but I can see that there’s hate behind the concern she’s got for me: pure, unadulterated, cold, steely hatred that Roger has certainly earned from everyone who’s ever had it for him. She’s ready to attack, I can tell by her body language: her teeth are gritted, and I can see her jaw almost pulsing with rage. The veins in her temples look like they’re going to burst, and her brow is furrowed. Then I notice that one of her hands ball into a fist. 

“How dare he call you?,” she hisses through bared teeth.

I hold my hand up to keep her at bay, waiting to see what he’s got to say to me, at least, before I hand the phone to her and let her at him (which she’s been begging me to let her do for a few years now, even though Roger rarely calls or sends letters except to beg me to let him off of his alimony payments - which I refuse to do). 

“Please, you need to help me,” Roger moans in a way that I can only describe as pathetic. 

“Help you with what?,” I ask, trying to sound sympathetic, but I don’t think it worked all that well. It’s very difficult to have any sympathy for Roger. 

“Please, Cora...is it true that…” He stops as if to consider his words, and I wait with reluctant patience for him to finish his sentence. It takes a few seconds, but eventually he’s able to continue. “Is it true that Maisie...that she’s back in Cambridge?” 

…

I pause for a few seconds to fully appreciate Roger’s absolute audacity, the only thing about him that I could even try to admire if it didn’t ruin my life. It strikes me that Roger is so stupid that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with calling me to do this, even though he knows that I found out about his being obsessed with her and stalking her. Even though I sent him that scathing letter after I left revealing everything he still found it in himself to call me to ask me about her. Can you even imagine the level of stupidity that takes? 

“Are you actually serious right now, Roger?”

“Yes,” he moans, and his voice is even shakier now, making me think I was right that he’s crying. “Please, I’m in agony…” 

“This is ridiculous. I’m not telling you anything about Maisie or what she’s doing. You’re sick. For all I know you’ll show up where she is and start peeping through her bloody windows, you fool. Absolutely not, I will not say one word about Maisie to you, and I’m actually taken aback that you thought to ask me after you knew specifically that I left because you were stalking her.” 

“You’re the only one I can ask…,” he cries to me, “Nick won’t answer my calls, Rick and I haven’t spoken since 1985, I dare not call David and risk fucking him up by telling him she’s here, and Syd was very….it was very final, when I spoke to him. I got the impression that he didn’t want me to call him again, and so...so, you’re all I have left. Please help me, Cora, I’m desperate...I’m driving myself mad…” 

“You’re not getting anything from me,” I yell at him, furious, as I get ready to press the button to end the calI. “I don’t care how desperate you are. You have every reason to be desperate, and that’s the end of that. Now, I’m going to hang up, and you can fuck right off and don’t ever call me again. I can tell you now that if I ever thought of letting you stop my alimony payments this totally reinforces to me that I need you to keep sending them. And you’re so beyond lucky that I decided not to tell her the truth about you and everything you did. Asshole,” I spit. 

That’s when Judy, unable to keep a lid on her anger anymore, grabs the phone from me with a ton of righteous anger that she has every right and reason to feel, and starts to yell into it.

“Don’t ever call back here again, Roger Waters, do you understand? Yes, this is Cora’s partner, Judy, and I’m letting you know that if I ever witness you calling my partner again, or leaving her messages, or anything...I will personally find you and break every single fucking bone in your body, you fucking lazy sod. After all the things I’ve heard about you let me just tell you right now that you are lucky I’ve allowed you to live up to this point. Now fuck off. Thank you, fuck you, bye.” 

Judy hangs up Roger’s call and tosses my phone to the other end of the bed where I can’t reach it without expending extra effort. She wraps me in her strong, muscled arms and I find a home burrowed between her breasts. I’ve never felt safer than I do right here, right now, and even though Roger can try his best to shake me and to cause me harm I am not breakable. I am not vulnerable, because I have this perfect goddess to protect me.


	73. Rick - Boston, Massachusetts, 1969 - Terri's Bar And Grill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick watches a scene play out in a Boston bar that may eventually lead to Roger turning a corner, but who can be sure?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The new character I introduce in this chapter will become very important. Though Rick says some things that sound like body shaming I promise you that's not where this is going.

_  
"You gotta check out the bahhhhs", every red haired, green eyed Bostonian roadie told us while we were setting up for the gig. So, here we are, checking one out, and I have to say I don’t quite get the hype. I’d take an English pub over this any day, but Americans do tend to be more of a noisy sort than we Brits are._

_The air in this bar after our gig is certainly triumphant: looking around the room at my band members I can see that everyone’s in a jubilant state. Well, almost everyone, that is.  
So with my Jane by my side, sitting at a table with Amelia and Nick, I’ve let my mind wander while Nick listens intently to Jane and Amelia talking about books (Amelia reads?). I sneak a hand around Jane’s waist and squeeze it, letting her know I know she’s there and that I can’t wait til we get back to my room later. When I feel her arm reach around my back so she can rest her around my waist I shiver, and my anticipation for bedtime later starts to boil...but that’s not really what you’re here for. You want to know what’s going on with everyone else, and that’s fine, I just can’t do this without talking to you about my Jane...isn’t she perfect? _

_Anyhow, as I said: everyone’s very upbeat and having a jolly old time, almost. Over there by the window we have Maisie and David standing against the wall, and I can see that both of them are considering asking the other to dance, or perhaps I’m misinterpreting the shrugs and the glances back and forth between the record player and each other. I can see it in the smiles and the nervous laughter. And even over the roaring of the music (The Hollies this evening) I can hear each one of them about to say ‘Do you wanna dance?’ Wish they’d just get around to it already. The dance has gone on a bit too long, hm? Why won’t they just own up to it and stop dancing around the matter?_

_Maisie’s got her hair up in a high ponytail tonight: hair spread out in a bouquet behind her head. Admittedly, it’s gone a little fuzzy after the show, but that’s a rather minor complaint. She’s got a pale blue sleeveless top on...a fabric that probably feels a little bit like animal hide with a bit of a rusty looking, casual sort of messiness around the neckline. She’s layered her top with a vest made of white beads, and around her bell bottom jeans she’s got a beaded leather belt, a red one. David’s just in a red t-shirt and jeans with some black and white sneakers. His hair hangs loose and graceful around his shoulders, and he’s trimmed his beard perfectly so he’s got the whole Viking thing going on that I know all the birds get their knickers in a bunch over._

_Finally Maisie takes a long, desperate inhale, looks over at the record player, and then back at David, and then back at the record player, and then she opens her mouth to speak. She motions her head over to the dance floor, and with a shy smile I see her mouth the words: ‘Wanna dance?’ David beams, his eyes sparkling with delight that I can feel spreading through the air like sweet perfume. He nods, and she takes his hands, and they wander onto the dance floor, lost in one another. It’ll only be a matter of time, I suspect. Before they lose their will to ‘make sure the timing is right’ and fall to a fit of passion, I mean. They should have realised that there is never a right time to fall in love; only only ever gets the chance a few times in one’s life, and it’s better to take it than it is to not, even if it could be the wrong time for one of them._

_Look, before I tell you about how perfect they look dancing together the way they are, I feel obligated to say that yes...Maisie moving on so fast is a fair bit of a problem, but she’d be better served by taking the risk by taking the chance to fall in love with David, to let herself be loved by someone who didn’t just want her to be his Mummy. I hope she’s not so thick headed that she lets the chance pass her by. And let’s not let David off with no blame, either: it’s entirely possible that he spends so much time worrying about the timing of his moves that he lets it all pass him by. Either one of them could fuck this up. Now, back to the action:  
In the time we’ve been talking, Maisie’s been pulled into David’s body...his hands on her back and holding one of hers, her free arm resting upon his shoulders. They dance for one whole song: holding one another close and flashing smiles they think no one else but them can see. They’re so obviously falling in love, and at this point I think they both know that is exactly what it is. _

_The song is about to end, and the two of them are swaying together, lost in one another’s eyes...unable to see anything else at all but one another. And then like magic Maisie’s hand finds its way to David’s cheek, and after he sits in shock for a moment he raises his own hand to rest it on hers. They share a look that is nothing short of intense, deep, and dare I say it...adoring. They look like they absolutely adore the ever loving shit out of one another. And then I turn my head away from them when the song ends to notice Roger, and by now I suppose you’ve guessed that he’s the one who doesn’t seem to be having a good time._

_Yes, there’s Roger, indeed: sitting all by his lonesome at the bar, staring at Maisie and David together on the dance floor lingering before they take their seats at one of the free tables. I don’t know why they’re lingering, but I’ve got my ideas, and it seems Roger’s forming some ideas of his own. This room smells like American piss beer. You know, how they always water it down so they can drink as much as we do, but never get the least bit drunk. Roger’s got two beer glasses in front of him already finished, and his eyes widen and his lips set into a straight line as he stares at them with disbelief. Somehow, I feel like he didn’t realise he’d be drinking watered down beer and that’s added to his already rather sour mood (and that’s being generous). Wearing his trademarked black t-shirt and tight blue jeans with black boots, he stares down at the bar after his eyes move away from David and Maisie. His shoulders are rounded forward like he’s trying hard to hide from their sight. He doesn’t even want Maisie and David to look at him, but that’s fine, because they aren’t looking at him at all. Their eyes are far too busy taking in one another to notice anybody else in the room, least of all Roger, who was so bloody obnoxious during rehearsal and setup today that he’s lucky David didn’t deck him (I saw him walk off to go have a fag before and cool himself down after clenching his fist after Roger had just finished screaming at us over one thing or another)._

_Indeed, he looks down at his two empty beer glasses with abject consternation, surveying them with horror as he realises he’s nowhere near as drunk as he ought to be. He looks up at the bartender: a stout, girthy force of a woman with dark brown hair styled to hang carelessly around her shoulders...I can’t decide if there’s more of her or less of me. She’s older, probably late 40s, maybe even early 50s, and she’d be real fucking beautiful if not for all the fat, I’m sorry. Perhaps some blokes like that. I know plenty of blokes who like a little extra like what Maisie’s got, but this is maybe a bit too far for a lot of tastes. I don’t know. Who am I to assume that what’s too much for me is also too much for every other bloke out there? I’m sure she has a very happy husband at home. Judging by her disposition...the way her whole face glows when she smiles... she’s a pleasant, friendly person who other people like to spend time with. Maybe she’s a mother, or she teaches during the day and lets loose at night tending bar. Maybe she’s an independent woman: unmarried and free. She’s certainly got a story that deviates from the standard American woman’s story, as I don’t know many American lads who’d feel comfortable with their wives tending bar all night. She’s also tall: she’s rather close to Roger’s height, actually, and she’s wearing a black sleeveless top not unlike Maisie’s in any way except that it obviously did not cost as much money. Her trousers are dark blue jeans, and her footwear a simple black and white sneaker, easy footwear for being behind the bar._

_I notice her looking Roger over, but I don’t blame her. He’s grown into himself a bit, and he’s not a nasty little minger anymore like he was when we first met him. He’s put on some muscle, grown his hair out, and got rid of those weird coloured glasses he used to wear (only because Syd wore them, but Roger always did look quite a sight trying to dress like Syd). Too bad he’d never give her the bloody time of day, even, the poor thing. But one still doesn’t blame her for looking._

_Now that Maisie and David have settled into their chairs at a table for two not far from the record machine, and they’re … I swear to god, they couldn’t be more typical if they tried … they’re sharing a milkshake with two straws. I want to kill them, that’s how perfect they are for each other. If I didn’t have Jane I would without a doubt want to kill them. It isn’t fair that two people should be so disgustingly perfect for one another, but here they are in front of me sharing a milkshake with two straws. They both lean down to take a sip through their straws, and then their eyes meet, and they both smile...and then look away and blush, and then look back at one another, and then smile. It’s...it’s as if there’s a fucking romance film going on right in front of me, but somehow this is real._

_And I think that we’re closer than ever before to them finally admitting … and consummating … their relationship._

_As for Rog over there, well...who knows. It would be a pity if he came here tonight and just kept on ordering beers and never got proper drunk, wouldn’t it? And he’s got no girl fans of dubious age around him tonight. Didn’t even make any eye contact with the gaggle of them that were flocked around the stage door when we were leaving, and I’ve never heard a nastier little group of women. They were so disappointed that everyone except for Roger had a girl with him, and that Roger didn’t even look at them twice. Something got up his arse, I think. With Roger’s luck he’ll end up having to go to bed sober and alone, and that’ll make for a tomorrow that’s going to be off the wall for everyone in one way or another._


	74. Roger - New York City, June 2006 - Roger's Penthouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger throws himself a signature pity party and wonders how Maisie's life has turned out.

It’s been a week since Syd called, and I’m not doing any better than I was the second after we hung up the phone, if you remember that’s the last you and I spoke. In fact, things have only gotten worse since then. I’ve resorted to calling Nick and even fucking Cora, and that took a lot out of me. You know how I hate to beg, but I’m desperate. 

Cora ended up calling me back shortly after she had her girlfriend bark at me only to reiterate that the only time she wished to hear anything from me again was through our attorneys, and that she’d be asking her barrister for more alimony money as soon as she got the opportunity as a result of my ‘wasting [her] time’. She wasted no time in rubbing it in my face that she had received a call from Maisie herself some time before we spoke, and that she was going there to meet Syd, and that she still would not tell me where they were living. I suspect they’re still in the rowhouse on St. Mary’s, because I don’t think Syd ever moved out of his mother’s house (even after she moved out to be away from him), but I’m not sure. I’m certainly not sure enough to go and check for myself, that’s for certain, but that doesn’t mean the temptation isn’t there.

The temptation, the burning, festering, itching and unbearable temptation: to fly to London, rent a car, drive to Cambridge and peek in the windows of the house on St. Mary’s is so hard to fight off that I’ve thought about the very real possibility of having to possibly chain myself to my radiator like I’m a werewolf on a full moon (and perhaps the case can be made that I am...indeed...when it comes to her: a beast). It hasn’t come to all that, luckily, but it often feels as if I may not have another choice if it goes on much longer. The thought nothing short of terrifies me, as I have not felt so close to total collapse in years, even after the divorce from Heidi. Every day is like a constant war in my mind; it continues to get harder and harder, as I know that Syd’s funeral is drawing closer, and closer still. And after a while one begins to feel the constant battle between feeling utterly obsessed...obsessed to the point of physical illness...and feeling drawn to stalk and watch to get one’s high, and the shame that comes with that temptation, and the knowledge that put quite simply, it’s wrong. It’s terrible, sick, twisted, villainous behaviour, that stalking and watching, and I have sworn to myself never to do it again, at least to the point of how I used to do it back then. Perhaps I’ll steal a glance once in a while...if afforded the opportunity, of course, which on its own is so far from unlikely that it’s more possible that the guys and I will do a reunion tour. That is to say: slim to absolutely fucking none. 

Anna is starting to wonder why I keep sending her off to resorts with her friends (I told her I’m composing an album; I haven’t even picked up an instrument), and Guada is starting to wonder if she can still rely on me for a paycheck. Naturally, my home is thoroughly trashed about, as I’ve never been able to keep up my own home when I find myself in these bitter doldrums (and I think we can safely say that I often do). There’s a mountain of old beer bottles, probably some a week old, piled up next to the TV, and next to my recliner it’s just some pizza I got down the street, because I haven’t the motivation nor the interest in eating anything else, and forget fucking cooking my own food; there’s no way that’s happening. The place smells of alcohol and dirty dishes (I haven’t got the energy to wash them; it’s been going on for two weeks now, and I’ve managed to wash enough to have one plate to eat off of, one shot glass to drink from, and one beer glass. I don’t think I’ve had a glass of water in a few days, and the coffee is also pretty fucking old. Maybe it’s really only been a few hours. I don’t know. 

Time just seamlessly drifts on; the days become like streaming music...just flowing from one to another with no clear separation between tracks. It all ends up being the same: stay awake until 6 am watching the news in the recliner eating bowls of cereal with my hands, roll out of bed after about two hours of being awake staring at the ceiling, have my first drink, have a drink of coffee, cigarette, (maybe) get dressed, second drink. Shitty lunch; maybe a candy bar. Whatever’s around the house. Next, third drink. Cigarette; more television, pining and longing (throughout the day), perhaps go into a rage (because it’s not all about Maisie - now I’m having so many painful memories and intrusive, enraged thoughts about the band and about my grudges with every single one of them that I hadn’t been burdened by in years). Fourth drink, cigarette. Maybe an extra cigarette. Tumble into bed eventually on some mights, sleeping pills, do it all again.

Do you think Syd is fucking her? I’ve seen the pictures of Syd in the tabloids; I know very well what he’s physically come to. He looks like the old nonce down the street, unfortunately. Or maybe not that, certainly not that, but he definitely does look like an odd sort of person. No hair left at all (but at least now he’s got the eyebrows), very bony, perhaps not quite sure of how to dress himself appropriately for the weather. Paint splattered jeans with a white singlet, dirty old trainers. The skin on his face caving in with age, and only ever wearing a resentful, distant scowl. He’s nothing of his former self, unfortunately, and he seems to care very little about it (and it’s such a contrast from the Syd I knew and loved who was very concerned with how he looked and what he wore). He’s quite frankly not very desirable, if we’re being honest, and I do think it’s important that we be honest about it with one another. Do you think he fucks her, though? Do you think she could really fuck him with him looking like that? If he’s fucking her, do you think they do it often? He was probably so sexually frustrated, the poor thing, having waited for all those years. I imagine that as soon as she was within his grasp he was begging for even a crumb of pussy, and I’m sure that she played at saying no, but she eventually gave in and spread her legs for him. 

If she’s anything like she used to be...there’s no way she’s anything like she used to be, though. When I had her she was new to it, but she was so eager: she would do anything I ever wanted her to do, any way I wanted it done. She never said no, she was insatiable. She was hungry, passionate, and so, so willing, but I could tell she’d never been with anyone else. No, now...now with all the experience she’s probably had...

She’s likely better. Worlds better, in fact. She’s likely so good that he couldn’t even fathom the possibility of asking to be further satisfied. I imagine him, the most satisfied man on earth, feeling pressure to keep up with her endless appetites for sex...you wouldn’t believe some of what I was able to spy her and David doing, sometimes one go after another...and I hate him for it. I hate him for what I already know is easy, 24/7 access to her body, any way he wants to have it. If he wants to reach for her and hold her tight she’s right there. If he wants to kiss her for hours and hours, and bury his hands deep in all her hair he can do that at any time, and if he wants to drink the nectar from her loins all he needs to do is smile and ask, and she’ll let him. Maybe he’s even asked her to suck him off; that’s something he didn’t always care for, but after so many years of being left without any kind of intimate touch I’m sure that he had spent many years craving the feeling of her lips around him. 

I wonder how she’s aging. I wonder what she’s done with her life; if she’s ever been married, if she has any children, what she ended up doing with her career. I wonder if she’s loved since David, and I wonder if she’s happy. That’s it: I wonder if she’s lucky enough to be happy, and if she has loved ones to spend the holidays with, and if she is proud of who she is. I wonder if Maisie drives a great car, if she wears those fancy shoes she always wanted, if she’s got any Siamese cats like she wanted, and if she’s living with that bitch Gloria, and if that’s tolerable. 

I hope Maisie’s happy, and that she’s got her shoes, and her car, and her cats. I hope she’s doing whatever it is that brings her joy at the end of the day, and I hope that it’s her writing. I hope that she’s still beautiful (but I suspect she is), but I hope that she feels beautiful. I hope that when she looks in the mirror she loves how she looks in her clothes, and I hope she’s not afraid of eating the way I know she likes to eat. I hope that she’s got dear friends, I hope she still listens to my music. I hope that Maisie thinks of me once in a while, even if only for a second, and even if after she’s finished thinking of me she scoffs with disgust. 

I blather. My apologies. There’s just no one here but you to talk to. I’ve sent everyone who’d perhaps want to help me away so I could cocoon myself and be alone, but I feel so starved for touch and for connection that it keeps me awake staring at the television like a brainless, haunted zombie well into the morning hours. And I could have it from a few people, perhaps, including … my own wife, but I’ve never given her enough affection in all this time, and seeking it out now would be...let’s say...impossible, not to mention completely unfair. I don’t want it from anyone who can give it to me; this will only be solved if I get it from her. But she’ll never give it to me; I’ll spend forever now fucking chasing it as I always did. 

Because I won’t be able to repress it one more time. That’s a chance one only gets once, I suspect. I’ve lost the battle. I’m doomed.


	75. Roger - Boston, Massachusetts, 1969 - Terri's Bar And Grill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger strikes up a conversation with a cute bartender.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maisie would like me to remind you all that if you haven't voted yet to please do so! Look up voting in your state and find out where and when you will be allowed to vote, and where you can drop off ballots if that's how you are voting. No matter who you choose, your vote matters.
> 
> Notice: Try to avoid using the postal service, as some states are not accepting late ballots and your vote may not be counted.

_This American beer is so fucking awful. Going into a pub and thinking you’re gonna get drunk only to still be sober four beers in is demoralising to say the least, and infuriating to say the most. It’s a huge letdown: it’s like getting in bed with a real sexy girl only to discover that she lies there like a cold fish while you’re fucking her. I would give anything to be as pissed as I should be right now, especially knowing that Maisie is taking David to meet her parents tomorrow, and first off...it should be me, and second off...it’s likely going to go worlds better than taking Cora to meet my mother, as Maisie’s parents will probably like David a whole lot more than my mother liked Cora. And that’s to say nothing of meeting Cora’s parents, which is another hurdle we’ve yet to jump (but that I’m sure she’ll be pressuring me to jump over sooner rather than later)._

_So, here we are. The gig was great. Spectacular, even. Luckily I got my memory back in time to do this tour, otherwise god knows how that would have gone. We’ve got a few more cities left to do, this isn’t a long one. We’re not famous enough yet for long tours, just famous enough to get a string of dates up and down the East coast and a few on the West coast as well. California should be exciting. Everyone’s got lots to say about California. Gotta say I don’t think New York City is all that great, but who knows. I’m sure it’s not the last time I’ll spend time there, and I think perhaps it will grow on me._

_Anyway...of course I was watching Maisie and David over there dancing and sharing their milkshake. Of course I was. Did you really think I wouldn’t be, especially with my inability to get drunk? I’m sitting here as sober as I can possibly be watching the two of them obviously starting to not simply be interested in dating one another, but also they’re definitely falling in love. I wish it weren’t so, but I know that look, because it’s the same look Cora gives me. The one I can’t and will never be able to give her. That one. That one Maisie is giving David right now that should only ever have been for me._

_I’ve got to look away now, for it’s unbearable. It hurts me. It causes me physical pain to watch them take such joy in one another when she won’t even condescend to speak to me more than she absolutely has to, which is to say not very much at all. As I’ve started to recollect my memory of the day I fell off the horse it hit me one day how very obvious it was that Maisie wanted nothing to do with picking apples alone with me while Cora and David were over looking at the horses. She was so angry about being alone with me that she was throwing apples into the basket and would barely talk to me until I dragged words out of her. And I should hate her for that, but I don’t. I love her far too much. She could beat the piss out of me, and I’d still love her far too much._

_I spend a few more minutes wallowing in my self pity when I look up and notice the rather voluptuous woman who’s tending bar is looking at me. I don’t really mind the size though. I’d rather focus on her big, green eyes and her full lips painted a bright shade of cherry red with gloss that makes her lips look wet and sexy. It bothers me to be so attracted to her, because by all accounts, I shouldn’t be: she’s older...probably late 40s to early 50s by the looks of it, and she’s larger than any woman I’ve ever been interested in. Unlike Maisie, she carries almost all her weight on top; she’s got bigger breasts than I’ve ever seen on a woman and yeah, a bigger belly than maybe I thought I’d ever like, but I like it on her. She’s wearing a black singlet top and blue jeans, and her hair hanging around her shoulders, fanning out in layered wisps around her face. Thinking about how beautiful I think she is makes me feel embarrassed, and so I look down and go back to pretending I don’t see her. I’ve got misery and heartbreak to wallow in, anyhow._

_Good for David, I guess. He doesn’t fuck up the first time like a fucking prat, treating her bad and using her so he could cum. He doesn’t yell at her, or complain when she doesn’t clean up enough. He doesn’t do anything the way I did it, and would you look at that? He’s so close to getting my girl that it wouldn’t surprise me if they fucked tonight. For fuck’s sake they’re already in the same bed every night. He’s probably holding her so tightly all through the night that he can feel how soft her body is without even touching her velvet skin, which rivals everything else, but between her skin, her hair and how that extra padding she has makes her feel, it’s bloody hard to pick a winner._

_All of a sudden a husky, sort of nasally Boston twang voice comes from behind the bar. It’s that cute bartender. The one that’s way too old for me. The one I’m having quite a hard time keeping my mind off of, but at least it’s keeping me from dwelling on losing Maisie to a guy I just can’t compete with._

_“You alright there, rock star?,” she asks me, and I lift my eyes to look up at her._

_She’s smiling such a genuine, warm smile that I can’t help but return it to her, and that makes her beam even brighter. I think I see her blushing, but I don’t want to flatter myself._

_“How’d you know?,” I ask, not even considering answering her question._

_I’m most certainly not alright. In fact, I’m the farthest thing from alright. Certainly, alright is a state I could only pray to be in right now, seeing as her fucking piss beer won’t get me drunk._

_“I heard there were gonna be some rocker boys in town, and you and your friends look the part, so I figured I’d hazard a guess. Turned out to be right, I see. Lucky guess, then.”_

_It takes me a second to formulate a response, because I can clearly see that she wants to talk to me, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody. If she weren’t so beautiful I would probably hesitate to even give her the time of day, unfortunately._

_“Yeah, that’s me,” is all I can manage._

_“What’s your name, rock star?,” she teases as she pulls another beer out of the icebox behind the bar and sets it out in front of me. “Want another? You seem like you’re having a pretty bad night.”_

_I try not to laugh when she puts that bottle of watered down yeast in front of my face, but I can’t restrain myself for too long before I do indeed burst out into a small giggle._

_“I’m sorry. I don’t usually complain, but your beer is doing fuck all for me.”_

_“Yeah, you Brits often say that. You want something stronger? On the house.”_

_“You sure?”_

_“It’s my bar; I think it’s probably okay.”_

_“So you’re Terri, huh?,” I ask, looking her over. I gaze down at her sturdy hips, and even though she doesn’t have as much on the bottom as I thought I would have liked it doesn’t matter. She looks like the Venus of Willendorf, but maybe smaller than that, even._

_“The one and only. Nice to meet you…?”_

_She lets her voice trail at the end of the sentence, and her voice goes up like she’s asking me a question. My name. She’s asking my name._

_“Roger.”_

_“Nice to meet you, Roger,” she says with another smile as she pours some whiskey into a glass. “You want me to mix it with anything?”_

_“Nah,” I answer. “I wanna get proper pissed.”_

_“Sounds good to me,” she answers as she pushes the glass of whiskey toward me._

_I take a grateful gulp of the bitter, warm tasting stuff, and I can immediately feel my head swimming. Thank god. Maybe now I’ll be able to have a good time, and forget about Maisie for a while. (Then again, how many times have I said that before I made some kind of bad decision involving another woman?)_

_“That scratch your itch?,” she asks, and all I can think is that yeah, maybe for a second, but I’m gonna need more if I wanna get anywhere near where I need to be to forget all this shit. But I don’t want to take advantage of her generosity, so…_

_“Yeah, that’ll do it,” I say, “but I’m gonna buy another one. Maybe another two. I’ll take one free drink, but you’re not gonna lose money on my account. I’m hardly worth it.”_

_“How about this,” she says with a smile...a challenge in her voice. I don’t hate it. “You can have one more for free, and then the rest you can pay me for. I don’t get many cute rock stars in here, so while I have you I think I can be a little nicer than just one free drink.”_

_I feel a tingle rush up my spine when she calls me ‘cute’. I wonder if she can tell I think she’s pretty cute, too. She probably can’t; she probably doesn’t think a guy like me could actually think that about her, but wow, I do. If anyone’s gonna make me maybe forget Maisie for a little while, it might actually be this one, but I’m not willing to place any bets, because forgetting about Maisie is a thing I have not been able to do for a moment since I met her._

_Terri’s big brown eyes gleam with a warm joviality that I’m certainly not used to at home. Americans are so much warmer than British folks are, after all. The friendliest people I’ve met were always from outside of England, but quite often the very friendliest were American. Americans have this thing that I admire about them, which is that no matter who you are or where you come from (at least if you are a white person a lot of the time, unfortunately) they are friendly, and they try very hard to make sure you feel welcome, whether it’s at a restaurant, a hotel, a bar, or their home. It’s sometimes more than a bit jarring as someone who comes from a land of very cold, curt people._

_She slides another glass of vodka my way, and after I finish what I’ve got I take a sip, and every bit of warm, bitter whiskey I taste makes me feel like I’m getting all my energy back. Something’s gotta keep up my spirits._

_“Cute, huh?”_

_That’s all I manage to get out. I should have told her she was cute, but for some reason that I can’t really find I just couldn’t do it._

_Trying to avoid whatever could come of using that fucked up line, I look back at Maisie and David sitting there smiling with nothing to say, just sort of bopping along with the music while they share their milkshake. They look so lost in one another; she probably doesn’t even notice how I’m looking at her. She probably can’t even see a hint of the longing in my eyes._

_“Yeah, you’re pretty cute. There’s no way you are unaware of that. I refuse to believe it.”_

_“Think what you want,” I murmur, intent on believing there’s no saving this situation already while I keep gazing back at Maisie and David and how happy they look together, and feeling the stirring of the nasty vat of toxic jealousy that I can’t ever stop wallowing in._

_“What’s going on over there that’s got you so spaced out?,” she asks, and I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye for a second. She’s holding a wash rag, wiping the bar down, her hands doing the work that she’s so used to doing that she doesn’t even pay attention to it anymore. I can hear the concern in her voice; she actually cares about what’s going on with me, and if she doesn’t...if she’s really that good of a bartender, then I’ll tell everyone I know who’s visiting Boston to stop in._

_“It’s nothing. Don’t trouble yourself; not something you can help with.”_

_I roll my glass back and forth between my hands for a while over the smooth glossy wood finish of the bar, but the more I watch them the more I want to reach for my ring and spin that around instead so I can calm down and not storm out of here in tears. Look at them. Look at how happy they are. It should be me over there sitting with her and sharing a milkshake, damn it._

_“I think I know what it is,” she says, and I can hear from the little bit of teasing in her voice that she actually does know what it is. I can’t believe I’m that transparent._

_“Yeah? Take a stab at it,” I challenge, curious to see if she’s actually onto me._

_“It’s the brunette over there sitting with your friend with the blonde hair, sipping out of the same milkshake glass. I noticed it before, too. You’re like a sad little puppy over here watching them together. Unless it’s the blonde you like,” she says; again, teasing me. If I didn’t already like her I might find that incredibly insulting._

_I don’t want to give my secret up that quickly, but I’ve never had anybody outright call me on it before. Even if others have noticed, and I know that David has, no one has ever said anything out loud about me staring at her the way that I know I do. I’ve never told anyone. I’ve never even hinted to anyone that I might like her...and definitely not that I’m desperately in love with her. Now that someone has finally tried to pull it out of me, the secret is dying for me to pull it out._

_“Damn, woman. How did you know?,” I ask, and even I’m not sure if I’m being completely sarcastic, or only a little sarcastic, because it’s just a completely novel and strange experience for another person to mention Maisie to me. I suppose that if she notices it others that I spend more time around must have noticed it too, but not her. She’s never noticed; not even once._

_I look back at her and take in the full strength of her wide, sturdy frame with those juicy breasts. I never thought I’d find such big breasts sexy, but they’re right here in front of me, and I’m more than a little interested. I am, in fact, transfixed, and having a right hell of a time not staring at them._

_“Eyes up here, sir,” she giggles as she slaps me with the rag. Normally, that kind of behaviour would send me into a rage. I fucking hate germs, I don’t want most people touching me...certainly not with wet bar rags...and I’ve lost my temper with grabby fans more than once in my tenure as a ‘rock star’. But when she hits me with that rag I just freeze, because I’m taking it as perhaps more than it is. I’m taking the routine as a signal of interest that she may not actually be putting out there. It’s hard to know. I’m so confused. “Don’t be one of those customers,” she further teases._

_“Sorry about that. I, uh…”_

_“I know they’re big, it’s fine. I’ll get over it. Never thought a guy that looks like you would be doing it, though, I gotta say.”_

_“You shouldn’t say rubbish like that. Even if it were true, which it isn’t, by the way, it’s just not nice to put yourself down.”_

_I have enough experience with Maisie, who is probably half the size, to know that women who don’t like themselves will run themselves down more often than they probably should. Hell, I know this from being with Cora, and she’s nowhere near this size. Perhaps it’s just something all women do. I’d hoped they would grow out of it, but it appears that it might stay that way._

_She surprises me with her response:_

_“I’m not really putting myself down. I think I’m pretty enough. I never have a want for suitors, anyway, even into my old age. I just know that guys like you, well, you tend to go for women who aren’t me. But that chick doesn’t look like the kind of girl I’d see a rock star guy like you with, either, so who knows. Maybe you’re a unicorn. A hot guy who doesn’t mind a little bit of extra.”_

_Ever since I met Maisie it’s like the girls I thought I liked aren’t the ones I actually like. Do you understand what I mean? I always thought I liked girls like Cora...very tall, thin, tanned skin, blonde hair...and now I’m beginning to realise that Terri here is right. I might just prefer that, and that’s alright, but I’m with Cora now and I don’t want to rock that boat (it’s better than being alone). So a secret it shall stay._

_“I guess you could say that,” I admit, not wanting to be totally forthcoming with it, but unable to deny it, either._

_“Thought so. So, who is she? Your bandmate’s girlfriend?”_

_“I don’t even know what they are. They’re not together, but they’re obviously more than friends. They sleep in the same bed, they are always together, and they look at each other like the sun shines out of the other’s ass, but they insist they aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. But unfortunately…” (I pause as I start to say this, aware of how it sounds for Maisie, and even more aware of how it makes me look) “...she’s also my ex-girlfriend who I was a fucking prat to.”_

_“Well, that’ll make someone miserable, alright,” she says, and I look up into her eyes. When we connect I get a chill and a tingle that zap through my body like electrical current through a wire. She’s so warm and friendly, and she wants to listen to me. I mean, I suppose it is her job to listen to me, but nobody’s ever really offered before. Fucking Americans, offering to talk to complete strangers about their problems._

_“Yeah, it does,” I spit, and I know I sound unpleasant, but much to my surprise she seems rather unaffected by my tone._

_“Well, look. You can’t do anything about them right now, so why don’t you just keep your eyes over here and pretend they’re not over there?”_

_It feels like she’s asking the impossible. I could look less, but I don’t think I could find it in me to just stop completely, but I don’t feel the need to fight her._

_“I’ll see what I can do,” I say with a reluctant smile._

_A few more drinks in and I’m feeling pretty bold. We’ve been talking about quite a number of things, and the hours have been flying by. Soon we’re only two hours from close, but I don’t really want the night to end yet. She said she has no lack of suitors, and so I’m supposing that she isn’t married. Perhaps...perhaps I could leave with her. As long as I’m back to check out of my hotel room tomorrow I don’t think there should be any issue. If she’ll have me, of course._

_“Listen…” I continue with the slightest bit of nervous hesitation, unsure if she’ll laugh me off or what, “Do you...do you have a place?”_

_What in the fucking bloody hell was that? ‘Do you have a place’? Of course she has a place. What in the stupid hell is wrong with me?_

_Her reaction is gentler than what I expected, but she’s still clearly stifling a warm laugh at my expense, which I’m less angry about than I feared I would be. She puts aside the glass she had been drying to hang up, and she leans over onto the bar. Her abundant, glorious and delicious cleavage is rightwhere I can see, and I think she wants me to look, but I try my hardest to keep my eyes on her friendly face with the smallest, faintest smile lines around her mouth and the corners of her eyes._

_“You trying to make a pass at me, rock star?,” she asks with a teasing wink._

_“If that’s what you want,” comes my rather unexpectedly meek reply._

_She shrugs, and she looks around the bar, maybe checking to see if anyone’s watching. I catch a whiff of her rather fruity smelling perfume, a surprisingly young scent for a woman of her age. I catch my eyes drifting down again to her bountiful chest that it seems like she’s keeping so prominently displayed just to play with me, and she catches me with a playful swat._

_“Yeah, I have a place. I get off at 3:30. Why don’t you head out now and go gather your things from your hotel?” She grabs a napkin from behind the bar and a pen out of her pocket, and she scribbles an address down on it, and then hands it to me. I’m aghast at how forward she is, but I’m rather relieved. “Why don’t you meet me there?”_

_TO BE CONTINUED_


	76. Maisie - Cambridge, June 2006 - Syd and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cora and Syd meet for the first time.

Syd’s a little nervous about Cora coming. He doesn’t really love meeting new people, but Cora’s been begging to meet him for awhile now, so I begged him to please come out of his comfort zone a little and let me bring her over here and introduce the two of them. I think once the discomfort passed and he relented he started to get very excited to meet Cora, especially because I’ve told him so much about her and all the fun we used to have together (and when he heard that she was bringing ice cream). 

So now we’re cleaning (as we do when we have company). Syd can’t do much; he has been feeling very weak lately, but he found it in himself to dust a few shelves in the living room. I gave him about 20 kisses, I was so grateful for the little bit of help he could provide. And I don’t mind cleaning the rest by myself while he relaxes because relaxing is the best thing he can do for himself right now. So I’m in the kitchen cleaning the counters and the sink, and I’m finding it a little hard to relax. Actually, ‘a little hard’ is an understatement: I am finding it nearly impossible to relax. 

It has nothing to do with Cora and Syd meeting, honestly. I have no worries about that. Syd knows exactly what to expect; I made sure I told him everything I could about Cora and what she’s like, and I made sure I told Cora to be calm, not to invade Syd’s space unless she’s invited for a handshake or a hug, and everything else I could think of to keep him calm, especially with how little he’s wanted to see people lately. (He finally let Kathy come by, though, and he was very glad he did.) 

It’s just that I get more and more anxious every day that goes by now, because with how much he’s slowing down and how much pain he’s in I am terrified every morning when I wake up that it could be the real beginning of the end. I live every day with the knowledge that it could come at any time, and he’s living with the same anxiety. He cries to many almost every day. I’ve held him and calmed his fears while he expressed his terror that any day now we could be separated, and that we haven’t had enough time. We haven’t had enough time, that is just a fact, but I don’t ever express my fears about his death to him. Knowing that I’m as terrified as he is will just make it worse for him. I have to be strong for him, but I’m starting to tear up as I spray the counters and wipe them down. I’m hyperventilating while wiping down the sink, holding in a crying fit, and I’m scared if Cora doesn’t get here soon I might fail and break down. 

Wow. Damn it, it’s like he knows. He always knows. He always knows when I’m sad, or mad, or in trouble.

Syd’s arms just slid around me from behind, and he pulls me so close to him with his bony arms that I can’t breathe, but I don’t mind at all. In fact, it’s probably the only and exact thing I could have ever asked for to calm my anxiety, and he knew without me even being in the room. He’s so perceptive, I’d dare even say psychic, if you could believe it. Clairvoyant. Whenever I’m sad he knows exactly when to give me a hug, or exactly what kind of joke to make so that I can laugh and forget about it. And right now he guessed that I needed a hug, and how right he was. When I feel my body pressed against what’s left of his soft tummy I relax, even though I can feel the ribs so clearly now that it’s impossible to ignore, but I can’t agonise over it anymore, and I’ve just learned to love him in a different way now that it’s started to happen. 

“Why are you sad, my Silly Whim?,” he asks, and I smile, and my body warms as I think of that sweet nickname he gave me when we were young. He doesn’t use that one as often as the others, but I love it just as much. 

“I’m not sad, baby, I’m just trying to get all this cleaning done before Cora comes, and she’s due here within like ten minutes, so I’ve still got a bit to go yet and I’m just feeling a little rushed.” 

I’m a good liar when I want to be. It’s not something I really delight in or like to do. I try to be as honest as possible with people while also maintaining politeness, and that’s really hard to do, but this is one of the only situations in which I think a major lie like this would be appropriate. He can’t know that I’m as scared as I am, because if he knows it would really stress him. It might make him feel like I didn’t have any faith in him, or that if I’d run out of hope that he should also abandon hope. That could only hasten things, and that’s the last thing we want. So I swallow every single tear that was just on its way out and I place my arms on top of his. 

He rocks me, and I settle into his arms, but soon he’s dragging me away from the kitchen with a mischievous smile on his face, the one that lets me know he’s up to no good (or at least he thinks he’s up to no good). I roll my eyes, smile, and shake my head as I let myself be pulled away (because I can’t think of any actual reason not to indulge him, and fuck the cleaning. Cora won’t care that the sink is a little dirty. I doubt she’ll even notice). When we reach the couch he sits down, and he pulls me down by the hand so I’m sitting next to him, and then he reaches for me and pulls me tight into his side. 

“The sink can be dirty, silly. You did such a good job on the rest of the place, so could you sit down with me now? I want to sit right next to you like this until Cora gets here. We have been too far apart for my liking today.” 

I burrow into him, leaning my head on his shoulder and sliding my arms around the top of his belly. I can feel the cavern in between his ribs, but again, I’m ignoring it and just focusing on the way it feels to be wrapped in the arms of my husband. My husband. I repeat it to myself every day, still shocked by it. Still blown away by the fact that it’s even true. 

“You’re right,” I admit, “I don’t think Cora is gonna be sniffing around our kitchen looking for a dirty sink.”

“And trust me,” he says with a laugh, “it’s been dirtier. Before you came my kitchen was absolute shit. It was full of rubbish. I didn’t even know how to wipe down a counter.” 

“I know,” I tease, “I remember the big cleanup Ian and I had to do when I came. Remember how I sent you to Kathy’s cafe?”  
“I do,” he says, letting his hand travel up and down my back, his fingers cherishing and enjoying every inch of it. “I miss going to Kathy’s cafe. If I feel up to it could we go tomorrow?” 

“Of course we can, baby. We can go anywhere you want if you feel good enough to go.”

I look up into his beautiful brown child’s eyes, dancing with joyful energy as they stare back into mine, and we get lost in one another for awhile until a knock comes on the door. It’s a gentle, swift knock, and I know it must be Cora. I look over at Syd and rub his shoulders a little before I answer the door, because I can see the anxiety creeping across his face like a thunderstorm that’s rolling in a little too quickly, but somehow I manage to summon my inner Thor and call off the storm before it spreads too far. 

“Be right there, Cora,” I yell out to her.

“Don’t be such an American!,” Cora shouts back at me with a loud laugh. “Also, we don’t want this ice cream cake to melt…”

Sheesh, how’d she know exactly what to say? At the mention of an ice cream cake Syd immediately perks up, and he takes a big, long breath to let me know that his anxiety has just gone away, and it’s safe for Cora to come in. I snicker a little bit and give him the sweetest kiss we’ve had today, even though I’ve probably given him more than I can count and it probably felt like the best one then, too. 

I stand up with purpose and I walk toward the door, checking out of the side of my eye whether or not the dining room is tidy enough before I let Cora in. It passes the test. I really don’t think she’ll care. When I open the door Cora’s standing there with an ice cream cake balanced on her palm, her purse over her shoulder and a lock of hair hanging from her silvery blonde updo, made to look like it wasn’t done on purpose. It’s so carefully sprayed and molded though that a discerning eye can tell that it was. She’s wearing a black chiffon camisole with a high scoop neckline that cuts off and hangs loose around her hips, and a pair of white boyfriend cut jeans with open toed monogram Louis Vuitton heels. She’s got a big, bright smile that’s playing off her dusty rose painted lips, and she leans over to kiss my cheek. I return it, and when we pull away she glances behind me and waves with her free hand to Syd, who when I turn around too is waving back with a nervous smile on his face.

I take Cora by the hand and we approach Syd, who got up from the couch to greet her. I’m proud of him, and I’ll make sure I tell him later. This is really hard for him. Syd stretches out his hand with a meek, nervous friendliness that I can tell Cora appreciates. Her eyes and lips turn up in an even friendler smile, and she reaches out with her free hand after I take her bag, and she takes his hand. When they shake hands I can feel the tension roll off of Syd’s shoulders. 

“Hi, Syd,” Cora says mid-handshake. I remember in a moment that I hadn’t warned Cora about using ‘Roger’ since she isn’t a friend, but even though I expect Syd to be alarmed about it or get nervous, he doesn’t appear to. He seems pretty relaxed having Cora around, which considering how little he’s wanted anybody about lately is a miracle. 

“Hello, Cora. It’s nice to finally meet the lady Maisie talks so much about,” he replies in a low, shy, but mischevious voice that warms my heart when I hear it. 

I marvel at the strength he’s summoned, for even his presence is a little more lively than it was. He seems a little more alive, but maybe it’s just the ice cream cake. It does seem like he likes Cora already, though. Cora returns the sentiment, patting his arm. A little presumptuous, but he seems unperturbed still. 

“It’s nice to finally meet Maisie’s amazing husband!,” she exclaims in that enthusiastic and perky tone she’s had since I met her. She’s like an excited little whippet sometimes. A valley girl, they called them in the 80s, but she’s a posh lady from Kent, England, not a vapid teen from the valley. 

“Oh, did she say that? Did she tell you I was an amazing husband?” 

Cora hands the ice cream cake to me and the two of them sit down on the sofa. Cora moves to the opposite end, which I think was wise, and on my way back from putting it in the freezer I catch Syd beaming at me. His eyes are lit up like Christmas lights; his lips set in the widest smile I’ve seen today; his cheeks a deep shade of pink. 

“She says it every time she comes to see me,” Cora responds matter-of-factly, and that’s when Syd gets up and walks toward me with bashful intention and enfolds me in his arms. I lean up and kiss his cheek, and he squeezes me a little tighter.

“There’s nothing else I’d rather be now. I’ve had all my fun in life, and my dark times in life, and now all I want to be is Maisie’s husband.” 

He returns my affections with a gentle kiss on the top of my head, and I wrap my arm around his back. Cora looks over at us, her sky blue eyes twinkling with happiness, and she smiles at me knowingly.

“I see exactly what you were talking about, Maisie. Syd, you are just darling. She’s right lucky to have you.” 

“I am,” I giggle as I look up into his eyes one more time, and I hook into the airy, topsy-turvy feeling of being one with him just like I felt when he first begged for contact back in February. I knew I loved him then. For weeks I wasn’t sure exactly what I was feeling, but that first night that he begged me for closeness it became cemented for me: I love this man. This person. This magical, otherwordly being. I love and adore him, and even now, in front of Cora and everything, I want him more than words can say. I want to breathe the air he breathes for the rest of my days.

If I’m not careful we might just forget Cora, because we’re so lost in each other for this second that I’m starting not to notice. But I’m able to pull my gaze away from my baby after a few minutes, and getting the signal that the staredown is done, he looks back to Cora too. 

“Let’s have lunch, shall we?,” I ask them both, and when they both signal their agreement I walk into the kitchen and pull the meat and cheese board I put together out of the fridge. I pour some glasses of lemonade that I made for today and load them onto the pewter serving tray Rosemary took out when her lawyer came to visit. Yeah, when she tried to swindle Syd behind my back. Luckily, we haven’t seen much of Rosemary ever since Syd admitted to me that she’s making him nervous, too. She had called and pushed me to tell her that Syd wasn’t really seeing anyone, but while that’s true, there was a lot more to it than I let on. Neither of us really want her here, so she isn’t invited, and we’re all the more peaceful here at home for it. 

I place the tray on the table, and Syd’s eyes light up at the sight of the lemonade, which he had been very excited for when I was making it. He grabs for a glass with an incontainable excitement, reaching for it like it’s a surprise he was forced to wait entirely too long for before anyone else can move, he seems very greedy, but I brush it off. It’s charming. 

“This lemonade is so good, Maisie!,” Cora exclaims as she takes a rather large sip, and pauses before she swallows it to savor it on her tongue. That’s always a good sign. I like my lemonade just a little bit sweet. Too much sugar and it’s overkill, it doesn’t taste homemade. It tastes like Hi-C or something (another thing I caught Syd sneaking when I found him secretly eating junk food and getting his blood sugar all out of whack last month, but that’s another story. That was an experience he learned from, for sure). 

“Thanks, love. I’ll be right out with the food.”

I leave them to talk, and while I can’t hear what’s being said, I can hear that their conversation is animated and enthusiastic; they’re clearly getting on very well together. I wasn’t sure what they’d have to talk about, but Cora’s a real people person and can find something to talk about with anyone regardless of who they are or what they like. I’m not surprised that Syd finds her easy to talk to. I certainly do.

As I spread the meat and cheeese and crackers out on the platter I bought from the department store in the mall. I fucking hate the mall, and all of the noise and garbage and whatever, but unsurprisingly the Brits are a lot more respectful and don’t throw their trash everywhere. Anyhow, that’s not the point; I just needed to get that in because I REALLY hate the fucking mall. The serving platters they had at the local store were plastic and cheap looking and I’m too picky and high maintenance to not care about it, so I had to travel a few hours to the nearest Harrod’s or Debenhams or head to the mall in town. Anyway, moving on.  
Cora’s guffawing in there like a happy little kid: sighs and hyperventilating and everything. Of course Syd figured out how to make her laugh, I think to myself while I roll salami, put down pepperoni, and sneak a few slices of turkey, and strategically place cheddar and mozzarella and provolone in the second ring of the sparkling glass serving platter that I’d debated and eventually given into myself on, figuring I could give my platter at home to Paul and Allen, or something, and replace it with this one. The sound of them giggling and Syd telling jokes, and Cora losing her mind with laughter brightens my mood, which wasn’t really all that dark to begin with, although I have been fighting thoughts of David a little more often now. 

I hear Cora start to regain her breath when Syd’s jokes come to an end, and deep in my stomach I feel the rumbling discomfort, like having eaten some nasty Taco Bell, deep in the pit of my stomach, squeezing my intestines a little. I don’t really have to use the bathroom, but if I don’t wipe the thought from my mind that could be where it ends up going. It should be okay for Syd to get quiet. It is perfectly okay for Syd to get quiet. It doesn’t mean anything, Maisie. It doesn’t mean it’s time, and let’s just move on from that for now while everyone is enjoying themselves.

I throw some crackers into the center ring of the feathered, rippled sparkling glass, and scatter some carrots on the outermost ring. It’s a perfect lunch. Syd fought me so hard on it, and I laugh when I think back on the way he begged me to serve a fry up instead. I wander back into the living room, tray resting perfectly balanced on my arm and my own lemonade glass in my hand, and I find Cora and Syd looking through Syd’s portfolio of pictures we’ve colored together. What a relief. Of course there wasn’t anything seriously wrong, or Cora would’ve called me into the room. He just got lost, as he so often does, in his love of art, and Cora happily indulged him in it. They’re leaning in toward one another, and taking in the powerful beauty of our collaborations with equally vested interest, poring over each detail and making note of their favorite things about each page. I hate to interrupt them, and so I give them a few minutes. They still haven’t noticed I’m here, and it’s really such a lovely thing to sit and behold, but I gotta put down this meat platter and these glasses or my arm is gonna start to go weak. It’s been awhile since I’ve planked, stretched a resistance band, or lifted anything, and oh damn, can I tell sometimes. 

After a few moments of adoring and admiring my best friend and my husband bonding and sharing, and her indulging in his every need to show off, I let it be known I’m there, and they both turn around to welcome me into their little dyad. Syd’s eyes light up when he sees me, and my heart begins to pump a little harder and a little faster when I lock eyes with him. He motions for me to come over, and I do, but I carefully approach because I want to keep this beautiul moment the same; I don’t want to disturb anything about it, but once I’m next to Syd he leans over and kisses my hand, and I look down at him...his eyes peer up at me with a hint of adventure and a little bit of longing...I shiver as his lips graze the skin of my hand, fighting off my more carnal urges so I only feel the love that’s radiating off of him. 

“You came back, Maisie. I’m so happy to see you. The food looks really tops,” he muses as he lays his eyes on it. “I’m going to eat so much of that…”  
The way his voice gets so dreamy when he says that combined with how he zones out on it makes me laugh. I tried not to, but I can’t help it. 

“You can eat as much as you want, but keep in mind you need to keep room for your cake.”

It’s a small ice cream cake, by the way. Just enough for three people and maybe one piece left over for Syd and I to share tomorrow. Cora had asked me about the size, and I’d insisted on the smallest one. ‘No big cakes. It’s too much left over, and he can’t resist it.’ That’s what I’d said. 

He brightens up, and his gaze is stolen from the meat at the mere mention of the ice ceam cake. 

“You’re right. I should make sure I eat enough to save perhaps a tiny bit of room for cake.”

The day passes much the same way as it started: lovely; friendly; fun; full of laughs. The three of us scrutinize and enjoy every one of the drawings, enjoy our ice cream cake and end with Peter Pan, and now Syd and I are off to bed. Before Cora left she pulled me out onto the front steps and raved to me about how wonderful Syd was for about ten minutes, and I sat and enjoyed every second if it, knowing she’s right. 

Syd is so, so exhausted from it though that unfortunately I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to do it again, at least for that long. Syd still has to meet his niece, after all.


	77. Syd - Cambridge, 1969 - Syd's Mother's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Syd is confronted with his mother for the first time in a very long time, and she doesn't necessarily believe that medication is necessary.

_Rosemary came to fetch me from that awful prison I had to stay in yesterday. She wasn’t happy to see me at all, not in the least bit. She was so cross with me the entire time. On the ride home she admonished me for whatever it is that happened to me as if I had any say over any of it, as if I could have controlled it at all. As if I’d ever fucking lock up my Maisie like that if I could have controlled it. I was always good to her! She was happy. I got sick, and she wouldn’t have left if I didn’t hurt her... but there was no other choice to be made, or at least that’s what I thought, but the doctors told me that my friends weren’t real, and Maisie was in no danger except for the danger I put her in. Is that true? Did I put my Maisie in danger? Was I the serpent the whole time? It can’t be: my friends kept telling me there was no other option to protect her...but I just hurt her so bad instead. Now she’s afraid of me. My only love, my true love, she is afraid of me now. But I will wait forever for her to come home, because maybe one day she will. I have to hold on to hope, or I may wither away and die._

_After all of this has happened...after doing the Very Bad Thing to her … after having to live without her in that scary place with the artist and his brother and his brother’s demon friends… and after living in prison … after all of this I wish that I could have been warmly welcomed by my own sister, but that’s simply not to be, I suppose. Rosie has always had a low tolerance for anything that rocks the boat or might bring an unwelcome spotlight upon our outwardly spotless family. Little do the others know we’re hardly spotless at all, but rather than accept the responsibility for what they brought to it both Mum and Rosemary are unforgiving of any deviance. Their reputation at the church down the way is quite important to them, and I suppose now I’m just the family embarrassment._

_The ride home was all nervy. She was cross with me, and I was very scared you know, since I haven’t been out to see the outside world in quite a bit of time now. I don’t even remember when I went in there. I remember that it was Rosemary who put me in there, of course. She said they would make me better, but I’m not sure if I am any better; I just don’t hear my friends anymore. I know that things I think make a bit more sense when I think them now, perhaps, but I don’t think I am any better. Not really. Inside I am nothing but a hollowed out old tree who’s sick with rot and decay. I cry every day unless I take the extra medication that makes me feel like a zombie so I can’t feel anything at all, but even then I just sit and think of her and how sad I am that I’m all alone without my Maisie. I won’t be any better until she comes home and finds me, and she tells me it will all be okay and holds me tight. Or maybe I’ll get a bit better. Maybe I’ll be less of a nervy, weepy, whimpering little husk one day. But I don’t think I will ever feel like a complete human being again without her._

_People don’t fall in love in real life like they do in the movies, I thought. Girls were nice and such, especially the prettiest ones, I liked being their boyfriend while I got to be that, but a lot of them I learned to really like. I fell in love with Maisie right away, and she noticed me the first time she saw me, too. We looked right at one another, and we smiled at each other, and after that I tried as hard as I could to talk to her every time I saw her and make her laugh, and even though she hates how she looks when she smiles I always loved to see it. I loved her bouncy curly hair and how she was so shy she almost hid behind Roger. What’s interesting is that outside of the band a lot of my mates thought Maisie was pretty plain. They were surprised to see us together, but I never really thought she was plain at all. I think they just don’t get it. It’s something that’s inside of her that shines up the outside, and maybe they just aren’t ready for true love, and so all they’re looking for is all the makeup and the fuss, but I don’t think that’s beautiful anymore. It was nicer to be with a more normal girl, anyway. I thought a lot of my girlfriends were alright and they were real lookers a lot of them. It was a status thing, you know. Competition with Roger after I asked him not to come by and make love anymore because he was yelling at me, too. Funny, that … the competition never ended, it just … switched. We used to compete to see who got the most girls, but then we both grew up a bit, and then started competing for one girl. I think I won, though, even if Maisie doesn’t love me anymore._

_But yes it was...it was like something about her that made the inside of me say ‘ooh my goodness, Syd, she’s not going to paw at you and demand you and slather you with false, adolescent adoration because you’re so famous’, and I had started to become very nervous with all the attention and the fame. I wanted to be with a normal girl who wanted to settle down and get married, and she was...at least at first appearance, a normal girl, but she’s so, so much more special than that. I don’t know what it was at first, maybe the way she smiled when she looked at me from behind Roger’s back. He didn’t even notice. That would be the only time that he didn’t notice. Fucking prat used to stare at us all the time when we were all together, like that time when we went ice skating and he was so busy staring at us in the snow that he fell on the ice like the big stupid lug he is, but I still feel warm feelings for him even though I know now that he used me for sex every time he went to get me from Maisie’s house. I don’t love him anymore like I did._

_I’m on a lot of medications now. A lot of pills to take every day in the morning and at night. They say I have all these conditions, some of them physical but a lot of them are inside my head, melting my brain into nasty old cheese sauce. They say my thoughts are disorganized and my mind is shattered. My mind is shattered?!? My head feels all together, after all, how can my mind be shattered? They say my mind is shattered, I hear voices in my head, I feel things that aren’t there. Lost the plot, basically. They say I’m ‘para-noid’ and that I can’t...I can’t do things for myself. ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING, they call it, they say I can’t do those things for myself. They say I should live in a … in a home with other people like myself, but I insisted that I could never do such a thing, it would be right dreadful and awful and quite possibly the worst thing for me that could ever happen, and Rosemary came, and she tried to convince me to stay in a home, but I would not have it. So now I’m at Mum’s. And Rosemary’s sitting next to me._

_Mum’s smoking one of her dainty cigarettes in a long stick holder. She’s tapping it into an ashtray every few breaths like she’s trying to seem proper. The tapping it on top instead of hitting it against the ashtray. It’s all posh to ash your cigarette that way, and I don’t care for it at all. The floor is where her sharp brown eyes continue to be drawn, like there’s bugs crawling about on it, but I don’t see any. I wonder what’s on the floor that’s so interesting. Maybe I would have known a few weeks…? Months…? Ago if not for the medications I’m on._

_The medications are a very wacky and sort of depressing thing. They make me all knackered, and they make it hard to walk about anywhere. I wasn’t able to go for many walks around the ground in the prison like I used to go for walks about Cambridge before Rosie picked me up. I slept quite a bit in that place, except for at night, when my memories of Maisie screaming so loud and sounding so desperate plagued me, and I realised she would not come and save me from there. I have to take these blasted things every day, and Mum is already being quite silly and stressed about all that. It would be too hard to remember, she says. She’d have to wake up early every morning, she says. I would not take it and hide it from her, she says._

_So now I suppose we are sort of at an impasse. She didn’t want me to stay here; I had to beg her with tears streaming down my face to please let me stay. She wanted to send me right back to that old, crusty, freezing prison where we all sat out in one big room together like a bunch of stinking sardines. Thrown away. Unwanted. Barely bathed and poorly fed. I got very skinny coming out of there. If Maisie were here I wouldn’t have gotten so skinny._

_Never mind. Never mind all of that rot. I can’t go over that again; perhaps I will fill you in on that some other time, on what it was like to be in there. For now it feels like more stress added on to an already stressful situation...so, yes, as we were. Mother doesn’t want me to stay here, but she’s going to let me, Rosemary told me this morning._

_We’ve just had breakfast, and I’ve taken my medication, so I’m feeling sort of sleepy, but it isn’t bad. It’s possible I’ll sleep later, but this one doesn’t usually tire me out nearly as badly as some of the others._

_By the way, it occurs to me that you and I may have never properly met, because even when I first talked to you I was already getting to be a bit off, and was always on drugs, and by the time I got off the drugs my mind shattered. So, I’m Roger but really you should call me Syd, for only you, Maisie, and the band are still allowed to call me that. You probably think I sound uncharacteristically verbose, don’t you? That’s funny. Verbose! Haha, that’s a rather funny word._

_Oh. Mum’s clearing her throat. I should probably pay attention._

_I lift my head and brush one of my mats out of my face to look at her more clearly. She’s clearly getting on in age, but she’s still rather pretty. She looks a lot like Rosemary, very pretty but like she’s trying to be not pretty on purpose. She and Rosemary have that same bob haircut, except Mum’s is flipped up on the bottom like Jackie Kennedy’s and Rosemary’s is just straight. Rosemary’s got bangs too, Mum doesn’t. They both wear those tiny little glasses, but Rosemary’s are dark rimmed, and Mum’s are wire rimmed. They’re like droll little copies of one another._

_Mum cocks her head to one side and takes another long drag off her cigarette stick. Every little bit of hasty, burning anger and resentment sparkles in her eyes like white lightning when she looks at me, and I find myself looking away down at the floor again, and letting the mats fall back in my face._

_“So, you need to be up every day at what time to take this...this...medicine?” -her voice gets all offended, like the very thought of me taking medications to make myself feel better is infuriating to her somehow- “Are you really going to take more drugs for a problem that came about because you were on so many drugs? Is that really what these blasted doctors are telling the junkies these days? They are out for quite a bit of money out of sick blokes like you, Roger. Do you really think that taking more drugs is for the best?”_

_It’s no wonder she’s all tense and frazzled; she doesn’t believe anything the doctors said, and she doesn’t want me to take my medications like I should._

_“Do..do you think I shouldn’t take them, Mum?”_

_I’m starting to get teary-eyed. I can’t help but cry in stressful or difficult situations sometimes, as it gets to all be too much, and I get nervous, and I’m not sure what else to do. I’m afraid right now. I don’t like to fight with Mum, but I should really insist upon myself. I feel as better as I think I can. If I stop taking these medications I could go back to going right over the rainbow, and that isn’t nearly as puffy and colourful and special as it sounds, you believe me._

_“I rather think you shouldn’t take them, dear. It sounds to me like it’ll only make you worse.”_

_“I think I’d better take them, though, because the people who do the science at the bloody hospital told me that I should.” ... I can feel my voice getting stronger and deeper and more immediate, and she’s looking like she’s a steaming old teapot... “And science has done some rather good things, you know, like you can’t get certain diseases anymore and such. So, I think I’d rather take them than not take them.”_

_She’s barely avoiding completely blowing her stupid little teapot lid. Mum never did like disrespect, but Rosemary was always more disrespectful behind Mum’s back and very good at being the obedient respectful child, and I told Mum exactly what I thought right to her face. She used to hit me, but that never went well for her as it only made me worse. So now she just sits there and seethes, her eyes and mouth hanging open wide like a soulless ghoul._

_Her big scary eyes say ‘How dare you disrespect me’, but she actually says nothing. She only looks over at Rosemary, who’s since lit up her own cigarette (and Rosemary doesn’t usually partake in smoking, she finds it vulgar) now that both me and Mum are smoking ours (they told me at the hospital to keep smoking. They said it can slow my thoughts down. So I smoke a fair bit now.), and Rosemary looks something like a little shrinking violet, a lonely child caught between two fighting parents, an unwilling judge in a johnson-showing contest, and a little old lady who’s so overburdened by life that she simply cannot handle another request of her time and energy._

_Now there’s a fucking pong in this room, or a ‘bad smell’ for you silly, lovely Americans who don’t speak proper English. It’s all the smoke, most likely, because all of it has settled around us in a mystical little haze, like we’re in The Lord Of The Rings, or something, and Gandalf’s taking a big puff of his long wooden pipe. That’s not what it is, though, but perhaps I’ll paint that later. The doctors say I should paint more. No more music, they told me. They were very certain and stubborn about that, but I don’t intend to listen to that. There’s no way that it could be bad for me to make music, so I’m not going to listen to that advice. But I’m going to paint all the time. I have so many things in my head to paint. I have so many paintings of my Maisie to do, and of all the bugs and animals she and I met on the way in the garden, and all of the tiger lillies that I’d like to give her. And I have another idea for a painting where...oh, bother. I can’t let my mind wander. It’s best that I get back to telling you about what’s going on instead of getting lost up in my head like a crazy person._

_“What do you think of this, Rosemary? Do you think that taking even more drugs is the right choice for Roger to make?”_

_“Mum, this is between the two of you. I’m not here to dictate what either of you do. I’m only here to…” Rosemary meets Mum’s popping mad eyes, like in those old cartoons how the characters’ eyes fill up with red and then they start to get overheated and then they go BOOOOOM. She doesn’t respond right away, but seems more like she’s taking her time to consider her options before she speaks. She’s always been like that. She’s always tried to make everyone happy. Rosemary sort of shrugs her bony shoulders, shakes her head, takes a big stressy breath and massages her temples like even having to think about answering this question is too much for her to bear. She’s just like Mum. It wouldn’t surprise me if she… “I have to say, you know, Roger does seem far more lucid than he did the last time I saw him.”_

_Rosemary came to visit me all of once, by the way. Once, just to try to convince me to go into a home with the other loonies and get lost in a system of fucking nameless crazies with nothing to do. She didn’t ever come to see me otherwise, even when everyone else’s families came to visit them on Sundays, I was always alone. So it has been a fair bit since she saw me, and I am doing rather well now as compared to then._

_“It’s all that rest he had. That’s what he needs. Just let him continue to rest. He doesn’t need any drugs.”_

_“Mum, it’s just that the doctors say that the medication is a rather important part of the treatment for what he has. He also needs to go to … to psychoanalysis.”_

_“Absolutely not! Only the nutters go and do that!”_

_Now I have to pipe up. I can’t just let her go on being so eerie and ignorant about all of this. It seems like she is rather content to be ignorant, also, which I find difficult to even begin to understand. If I had a child, and they were sick, and the doctors told them something would make them better I’d believe it._

_“Mum...what do you think happened to me? Do you know David Gilmour told Rosie that Maisie got me off of drugs only a few weeks after I got sick, and I never even noticed? I haven’t been on drugs for a very long time now!! I haven’t even had any grass! I AM A NUTTER, Mum! Why don’t you understand that? Do you think only some acid could do to somebody what I’ve had happen to me? I’ve never heard of acid ever doing that to nobody, and it isn’t starting with me!!”_

_She sits, undeterred but insulted, in her chair, takes another long drag off her stupid cigarette holder and grits her teeth. The air in the room still smells of the musty, ashy smell of cigarette smoke, and it’s worse now that she’s started smoking a bit faster, probably to avoid yelling at me. When she finally finishes the cigarette she removes it from the big stick and smushes it into the ashtray, and she squares her little angry eyes when she looks upon me. She’s looking at me like I’m some sort of a bug, or something. Like I’m a nuisance, a bother, but then again she’s looked at me that way since I talked back to her the first time when I was six years old. She hasn’t liked me at all since then._

_“Are you quite finished?,” she asks. Her voice is superficially polite; I can tell that underneath the thinly veneered surface she is also quite cross with me if not enraged, perhaps on account of the disrespect. But I don’t care. I’m 23 years old, I don’t have to obey her anymore. I have more that I think I should say in order to get her to grasp just how serious this all is. I don’t think she understands, and I want her to understand because she’s my Mum, and everyone wishes they had a Mum who understands. Is that something that other people actually have, a Mum who understands them?_

_My body is all trembly and rigid. I’m getting right pissed off at her! There’s all this topsy turvy angry tension in my body that feels like it’s gonna burst, and I’m a little bit afraid I might lose control. But the medication, it makes me so, so bloody knackered that I am having trouble even walking about. But inside I’m like, flitting about in circles and tumbling around. A big, dumb bumblebee bouncing off of things, and such._

_“No!!!,” I scream at her louder than I thought I might. There are words coming out of me in big, blue, icy waves... like a tidal wave, maybe. The frighteningly tall, glacial titans that I’ve dreamed up are so, so terribly angry...like the ocean when the sky brings a storm. They’re bound to drown everyone and everything and flood the room, and I hope that they take the whole bleeding house with them when they finally pull back out to sea. Just let the whole thing float away, get soaked through, and sink. My veins are popping now. POP pop POP pop every time I look at her. I'm so angry with her I can’t even stop to think of what I’m saying._

_And all the anger in my body, it gets to be too much to bear, and so...so I’ve collapsed onto my knees and dropped my cigarette to the ground, and it’s rolled away under the sofa. Rosemary rushes to retrieve it and throw it in the ashtray, and Mum just stands there, and she reminds me of a vulture the way she’s zeroed in on me, and now she’s waiting for me to die. I can’t help it, I’m losing control. Even talking about the Very Bad Thing now I feel all of the pain, the sadness and the regret again. I’m so full of sour, dizzying regret that it’s coming out of me as sweat dripping down my body and soaking through my clothes. Now the tension has moved, and I’m grabbing at all the mats in my hair. They feel greasy, they don’t feel like hair. If I didn’t know it was hair I’d assume it was something much more unpleasant because it feels like hairy wads of dog shit. The tsunami of anger that I feared would crash down on everything turns into bleak ocean waves of salty tears. The water aggravates my skin condition, the doctors said, so my face is full of all these little bee stings. I’m sobbing and sobbing over and over as I feel my body starting to press into the thick carpet. I’ve fallen over on my face, and now I’m staring straight at the red carpet on the floor._

_My voice sounds like a ghoul’s voice. You know, shrieking. Wailing. I’m howling at the moon._

_“I LOCKED MY GIRLFRIEND IN A CLOSET!! My favorite girlfriend, ever, my true love! For days!!! I LEFT HER THERE FOR DAYS. I don’t know how many days I left her in there, Mum. No one ever told me how many days. But it was more than one!! I sat there, and I LET HER SCREAM FOR DAYS AND DAYS AT ME, AND I DID NOTHING… I did absolutely nothing, Mum! I lost her forever...I lost her forever, and now I…I just want my Maisie…”_

_“That...is quite...enough,” comes her grey, detached, uninterested voice from up above me. “You can stay on the floor if you’d like, Roger, but if you want a place to stay you will no longer yell at me or have these outbursts.”_

_Her iciness only makes me wail harder. I feel so alone now. I’ve felt so alone for so long...and I have a long life of loneliness ahead of me, I suspect...and my mother’s coldness is a stark reminder. I can’t calm myself, and she’s still yelling at me. I can’t even hear what she’s saying anymore._

_Finally, my voice trails off and I’m left with nothing. There are so many further things to say about it, and about how I live every day with this profound and endless regret for driving us apart, but my heart cannot bear to bring the feelings to life by saying them out loud. I couldn’t even really talk much about it with the doctors at the bad place. It only keeps me awake at night and tortures me, but saying the words makes it too real for me to live with._

_“Well, dear,” she starts, her eyes roaming over me like a judgmental old school marm who’s caught me drawing pictures of her in the back row, “that all sounds like another thing that drugs do to people.”_

_“It’s not the drugs!! For the last time, Mother!! The drugs didn’t do this to me, something else happened! I am bleeding ILL!! I never would have locked my Maisie up if I were well…”_

_“Don’t even tell me you’re still hung up on this bird,” she warns. “That’s more drama no one in this house needs. You’ll let that go in short order, I won’t hear another word of Maisie while you’re in this house. The two of you moved in together far too fast, and she probably made everything worse by demanding so much of you...it wouldn’t surprise me if she was …”_

_Mother can hardly finish her sentence before my head starts swimming with rage. Even though the pills make it hard to move at all, and even though I am on my face right now, I find a way to channel every bit of hot steely rage into my legs and after a minute of struggling I find my way to my feet. At first I’m shaky, but then I start to march toward her until I’m just a bit too close for either of our liking. The shockwave that’s coursing through my entire nervous system and into my brain makes me raise my fist up behind my head while I am towering over her. I’ve successfully reversed things here. Just a moment ago it was me who felt preyed upon by her, but now the tables are turned._

_For the first time today she looks terrified instead of indignant, annoyed and furious when she looks up at me. She looks like she thinks I’m really going to hit her, but I caught myself before I took a swing. Not everyone has been so lucky; I’ve hit a number of people since Maisie left. A fair number of people, actually, starting with the mean blokes at Jonathan’s house and ending with some loonie at the bad place who told me I was crazy as if he wasn’t crazy himself. And there were people in between. I was quite violent when I was living at that place. They had to put me in the mummy jacket more times than I’d like to admit to you. It’s a wonder they let me out at all._

_I was ‘never known to be violent’; that’s what Rosemary said when she came to talk to me, so they said I was free to go home. They thought because of the medication perhaps now I wouldn’t be quite so violent._

_I couldn’t possibly hit my mother, but I’d be lying if I said I never thought about doing it before. Sometimes, maybe I’d like to hit her. In fact, I wonder if I’d be quite satisfied if I hit her and marched out of here and found somewhere else to live, but I can’t do that because then I won’t have my medication. So...so... I can’t hit my mother, nor would I ever. Ever, ever. One doesn’t hit their mother, Syd...no, no, Roger...they told me to call myself Roger and insist everyone should call me Roger...but I’m not Roger. Roger’s Roger._

_Rosemary clears her throat from over there on the sofa where she receded to when she’d retrieved the cigarette. Her cough is so prim and proper, like even in the middle of all this chaos she can’t bear to show any emotion at all. Mother and I both look over at her, sitting there on the sofa with her hands crossed over a knee that’s slung over her thigh. She’s wearing these khaki slacks that make her look as old as her personality is, and a pale pink cardigan sweater over a white button down shirt that’s fastened all the way up to her neck._

_“Roger…” she starts off, waiting for me to turn around and face her and ‘get my head on straight’ like she told me to do before when we were coming in the house and I felt anxious about seeing Mum. She continues with bated breath, like she’s got something very difficult to say. “I think Mother’s right about May Wells. I think you ought to just...I know you won’t forget about her and move on, Roger, I’ve realised that. I know that you’ve decided on waiting for her and I know that I can’t change your mind. But you are never to contact her again. I won’t hear anything of it. Do you understand?”_

_I advance on Rosemary. I’m losing my temper. No one will ever...EVER, do you understand?...ever tell me not to think about or talk about my Maisie. She is my only one, the one I belong to, and I will always think about her and always talk about her to everyone. I talked so much about her to the people in the prison that they got tired of me and started to avoid me, but I think I preferred it that way anyway._

_My head is swimming with anger, and before I storm off I look both of those old biddies over and hope that my gaze is scorching enough that they know I mean business. Perhaps they may have a lot more control over my life than I’d like right now, but they will never take away my freedom, and they will never take away my love for my Maisie, no matter how hard they may try._

_“I will not ever stop talking about or thinking about my Maisie, and both of you can go sit with your thumbs up your tightwad arses, anyhow, for even suggesting it. I don’t want to talk to either of you for the rest of the day. In fact, I may take to my bed now and not come out of my room for the rest of the day. Goodnight,” I caution as I stomp up the stairs to my bedroom._

_I think that went rather well, all things considered._


	78. David - Sussex, England, June 2006 - David and Kim's Houss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation with Amelia Mason changes the entire game for David.

Syd can’t possibly have been dying since March. Clearly, there was some miscommunication, because no one is ‘dying’ in March, and still kicking in June.

I got in touch with Nick today. A few hours ago, actually. He was reluctant to tell me anything, but he finally relented and filled me in on everything he learned today. He and Amelia spoke to Maisie a few days ago. Apparently, Syd even asked to say hello to Nick, and that went rather well, according to him, which is fine for him. I don’t care if everyone talks to Syd but me; I’d rather not talk about him at all. So I’m not going to go into much at all about him except to say that he’s by all accounts not, in fact, on death’s door. Maisie said he’s doing very well, that’s what Nick told me. He said that Maisie said he’s still eating and he’s still up and about. So, that’s that.

Now we’ll get to the real meat of the conversation. And I’m not trying to...listen,yes, I realise that when I said that I sounded cold and dismissive, but you have to understand that while Syd Barrett and I were mates at one time when we were in school together, he eventually got swept up by Roger Waters and moved on without me, and since then Syd Barrett has never meant anything but trouble for me. From the band, to saving Maisie from being trapped in his fucking closet, to having to call Roger and finally his weird sister Rosemary over to the house to come get him so he’d stop sitting at the end of the driveway and staring into the windows waiting for her, to having to work on his album with him in 1974 (That is one thing I will never forgive Roger for, by the way. He knew exactly what he was doing when he passed that responsibility on to me.), and finally to the studio session he wandered into and made a scene at … Syd is nothing but trouble. So, please, excuse me if I sound callous. I really don’t care if he lives or dies. The only reason that I give any kind of a fuck is because Maisie’s there with him for some reason.

And now that’s over with, I can tell you about what really matters about the phone call I just had.

After about 15 minutes of talking about Syd who should come to the phone but Amelia, who had grabbed the phone from her husband’s hand, unable to restrain herself or hold anything in anymore, and untrusting of him that he’d ever say anything to me without her coming to my aid. At first I was a little blown back by this, a bit offended, perhaps I considered it abrupt, but what would Amelia be if she weren’t abrupt? 

She prattled for a good two minutes about her grandchildren, which I don’t mind, but I sort of let my mind wander from it for a bit. I wasn’t sure exactly what her aim was, but then it happened.

_“So, I talked to Maisie about you.”_

Said in this very matter-of-fact, very casual way, like it wasn’t even a big deal. This was the first time in 20 years that anyone had mentioned anything to me about Maisie talking about me without me having to pry it from them (as you remember from the party), and she just threw it at me like it was an expected Christmas gift. The tone in her voice was so … lackadaisical, even, until I caught the tail end of her sentence with that perhaps ever so slightly heightened sense of urgency. Her tone was blase’, but I could tell she had been waiting to tell me.

_“Did you?,_ I pressed on, careful not to sound too eager, but clearly inviting her to tell me more. I tried very hard to hide the joy and the shock I felt. I tried to play it as casual as she did when she told me, but I’m wondering if the strength of the feelings betrayed my attempt to pretend I wasn’t as excited as I was. As I am. As excited as I am.

_“I did!!_

And that time, any attempt she was making to pretend to be casual failed her as well. See, Amelia is an odd one. Amelia Mason has never wanted anything more than for the people she loves to be happy, but her impulsiveness and the way she has of never letting a grudge go (Rick still won’t speak to her, but that’s another story for another time), and how eager she is to be as outspoken as she possibly can combined with her penchant for drink often causes others to keep their distance. Really, she’s harmless if you avoid the temper. This has all sort of manifested over the years as Amelia, every time I see her without fail, hitting me with some blunt object and screaming at me for letting Maisie get away, or her telling me she’ll never accept anyone I date or marry because they aren’t Maisie (and as I said a few months ago, this is precisely why Amelia and my wife don’t get along, unbeknownst to her of course). Amelia has never believed I’d get over Maisie, and as I’ve told her every time I see her when we manage to be in private, unfortunately she’s right. 

_“So...what did she say, then?"_ I asked, finally allowing all of my excitement to blare through my voice. I must have sounded far more excited than I meant to, but is it any wonder? This is what I’d wanted for so many years, and here it was, set on a silver platter before me thanks to beautiful, stunning, kind, wonderful Amelia Mason. 

_“David, she told me...you must never tell her I told you this…”_

My mind got stuck on ‘you must never tell her’. That one phrase sent me spinning out into space. When I heard that, I heard ‘you’re going to talk with her soon’, and I feel all this joy fluttering around in my belly at the very thought of it even now after the conversation is over, and the first shock of excitement has faded. It’s been a few hours and now I’m all set for a round of second, even more shocking excitement. 

_“Oh, you’re not going to believe it. She told me she is finding it hard these days not to think of you. She misses you very much. There’s so much I haven't told you over the years, David. Maisie misses you so, so much. She’s never gotten over you, either. She has never had a serious relationship with a man since she left you, she’s just had a lot of flings and short relationships. She’s something of a confirmed bachelorette. She has just never loved again since you, and she confided in me that she is struggling quite a bit these days. She’s trying to stay positive for Syd, and to keep it from him, but she’s having a very hard time. I don’t know what’s going on with them, by the way, they were both rather vague about it…”_

That’s the last thing I remember from that conversation. Shortly after that paramount revelation she thrust at me I made up an excuse to get off the phone, and I’ve been in my studio since then playing the guitar. Playing every song I’ve written for Maisie over and over, even kind of trying my luck at one of Syd’s songs about her (the one he named after her), but I didn’t feel comfortable with that one, having had to sit through him playing it and moaning her name over and over when I was coerced into helping him record. I’ve been down here a few hours now, and I can still hardly believe it. 

Everything’s changed now because I know she’ll want to see me, too. At first when Rick brought this up to me, the idea of seeing her at the memorial service, well...I wasn’t sure she’d be open to it. I wasn’t sure if she’d want to see me or talk to me at all, in fact, or if it would be too difficult. But now I know she wants to see me as badly as I’ve been wanting to see her, and that quite possibly she has always wanted to. Now that I know this I can go into it better prepared than I was before perhaps. I can find words to say that I didn’t have before, fill in blanks I had before in my head when I imagined how it would go. 

I’ve been fantasizing it since the night I finally made the choice to go through with this, helped along by all the pictures I found of her when I googled her. I never knew I could search for images on Google before, I’m not nearly that computer literate, if that’s any kind of computer literacy at all. It wasn’t until one of my grandchildren showed me that I started to utilise that feature, and since that day I’ve been looking up pictures of Maisie. I’ve got a whole folder of photos of her now on my computer, a locked folder I called ‘Lyrics’ so that Kim wouldn’t even think of it if she were to stumble upon it. Sometimes on nights like this I’ll sit and go through them and marvel at how beautiful and glamorous she’s grown, but I’ve got so much joy in my heart that the last thing I want to do is sit bent over a computer screen. No, I’ve got the images buried deep somewhere in both my mind and my heart now, memorised to the point of knowing exactly where the corners of her eyes wrinkle when she smiles. I’ve read and studied every line in her face and every curve of her body (which is out of this world perfect, as if she’s finally stopped fighting herself and learned to love what I’ve always loved...now that I’ve seen her voluptuous frame I just can’t get off with Kim anymore.), I know every single strand of silver hair like the back of my hand. As soon as I saw the pictures for the first time it was like I knew exactly what I had been missing the entire time, and so at times it can become a painful experience, but not now. No, now that I know that she misses me, too, nothing about feeling this way is painful. 

Basically, this is my fantasy about how our meeting will go: 

She and I spot one another, and we sneak away together to talk, but before we can even get words out we’ve given in to our baser urges and fallen back into one another’s arms. I kiss her beautiful plump lips, the lips I’ve been dreaming endlessly about for two decades, and she returns my kiss, putting every ounce of emotion she’s been feeling for the same two decades into it until we’ve devised a plan to run off together somehow. We spend a passionate night together, and we agree to pick things up where we left them off all those years ago, and we deal with all the repercussions of this later. We don’t even worry about them until we have to, we just revel in one another. We enjoy one another, we have so much sex to make up for all the sex we haven’t had, and that piece of me that’s been dead since she walked away comes right back to life again as soon as she’s back in my arms, the arms she knows she never should have left.

I’ve read more about American politics in the past few months than I have once in the years after she left me. I didn’t know before now that she had a weekly column on Time Magazine’s website, but I’ve been reading whatever I could find. Everyone thinks I’m just not political, and I suppose I’m not - that was part of why I urged Maisie to go to college in the first place, but my aversion to even talking about US politics has been mostly because it just reminds me too much of her. Now that I’ve found her column I’m obsessed. I know more about George W. Bush and the shady, fascist shit he’s trying to do than I ever have during the five years or so of his entire Presidency. She is just as brilliant a writer as I remember her being, too, and so I can’t help but get lost in it. Did you know she had an interview on an American news channel? I had no idea until I watched it. When I heard her deep, smooth, chocolate voice my stomach dropped. She also did a print interview with Marie Claire where she revealed that she has no husband and no children, and so that bit of information that Amelia shared with me I had already been aware of for quite some time; I just wasn’t aware that she never married because she couldn’t fall in love with anyone else. I’m proud of her, and I’m a bit jealous, because at least she had the integrity to be honest with herself and with her partners about it. I cannot, as you know, say the same for myself. How would my life have turned out if I had done other women the same favour that she did for the men and women she had been with? 

Sitting around, playing all these songs, thinking back on every memory I have of her that I’ve been able to keep intact (and I wish it were more than it were, but time is funny that way, and 16 years is a lot of time for a lot of memories to be made, and be lost), it’s making me think back on that day, too. The day that she left. Naturally.

I broke all the furniture. Just smashed up all of it. After she walked out I think I sort of sat there staring at the ring in its little black velvet box, like...if she had just waited we could have been engaged and preparing to start a family. I could have taken her on tour; I know she wanted to work, but she never had to. We both had enough money between us to make sure that we never had to be apart. She could have written articles on the road and sent them in to be published. We could have worked something out, but no matter how I begged her she insisted she couldn’t take it anymore. I begged her with tears in my eyes not to go, not to give up on everything we’d built, not to walk out on our love, but she was resolute. She needed to leave in order to be happy, she said, as tears streamed down her face and her voice shook. I KNOW she didn’t want to leave. She told me she’d always love me right before she closed the door behind her, and she gave me one more kiss: a kiss I’ve been hanging onto since that moment.

My mind was swimming then a lot like it is now, but I get lost in my thoughts more often than I’d like to admit. When I was done sitting there ruminating, I started sobbing. When I was done sobbing, I got pissed off at myself. I didn’t want to tour all that much back then. I barely wanted to tour as it was; I just wanted to make music. Nobody liked touring but Roger, and that’s a big part of why we ended up breaking up the band after he left, and the last two albums. Nobody wanted to tour. I wanted to stop touring like The Beatles did, and just focus on making music, but Roger would hear none of that. He loved the live shows and he loved being the star, and he really wanted to get away from his life back home whether Cora was in it or not, but all I wanted was to settle down and start a family with my girlfriend. Maisie wanted kids with me, by the way, even though she never had them with anyone else. And look what listening to Roger got me, by the way: 20 years of fucking with other people’s feelings and lying to them about something that’s so important only because I knew I could never justify it to them. I’m in a marriage with a nearly perfect woman who I’ve cheated out of having children with a man who only loves her, and who I’ve cheated out of a lifetime of being loved as if she were the only one because I’m a shady liar, and I’ve never even tried to work on it. I really am the asshole here. Maisie did right by whoever she got involved with; like Rick said...I stayed married for my own convenience knowing exactly what I was doing the entire time, and justifying it to myself by saying what Kim didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. 

My poor wife has always been the other woman in her own marriage, and she has absolutely no idea. I’ve played the part of the loving, attentive husband so well that she has never even suspected anything, and I believe it could be possible that I’ve never felt anything but very minimal remorse about it. Some part of me is very cold, I’m beginning to realise.

All this goes back to that fight Roger and I had in ‘82 when I became the second member of Pink Floyd to beg him to stop touring and let me stay home with my loved ones. When Rick tried, he got tossed out of the band and went into a tailspin of drugs and depression that really started when he lost his first wife. But Roger knew he’d never find another guitarist like me, even though he never quite figured that out about Richard. So when I tried to reason with him about the touring, Roger just decided to say no, get up in my space, and laugh in my face when I told him how the touring was hurting Maisie, and hurting our relationship. He laughed right in my face; got up real close and everything. And I’m more than sure that hurting our relationship was his goal, because he knew he’d never have her, and sabotaging our relationship to make sure no one ever had her but him was probably on the top of his list. 

I should have walked out on Pink Floyd back in ‘82 like I wanted to, because I knew back then that I didn’t need them, and that if I left Nick would have followed anyway. If I had just walked out on them that day, I thought, Maisie wouldn’t have walked out the door like she did, with one last sad, longing, sorrowful glance. The last thing I saw was her Louis Vuitton suitcase being pulled behind her faded blue jeans and her puffy white jacket with the black faux fur trim. 

But after I was done thinking, and sobbing, and being pissed off...that’s when the destruction started. I shattered every piece of fucking furniture she and I bought together. Just completely tore and smashed it to complete and total shreds until there was barely anything left. Threw the televisions into the wall, smashed the coffee tables, slashed the sofas, nearly ripped the mattress off, and threw out all the bed sheets. I left no stone unturned in my quest to destroy everything that ever reminded me of her with the exception of a few things that I went and found...photos, hair ribbons, knickers, mementos, all my returned letters...I once had a lip balm of hers and a little squeeze tube of her cocoa butter, but that I could only keep for a few years before I couldn’t justify keeping it anymore. I added a clipping of her New York Times article after Nick sent it to me, too. I’ve kept it pretty well locked up in my side of the bedroom closet throughout the years; I’m not sure Kim ever took notice of it. If she did, she never let on about it. 

After destroying the house I left, got a room in a hotel in town, went back to collect everything I wanted, hired a cleanup crew, and sold the place. I never looked back because I knew that living in that house with her ghost would have driven me to doing as much Coke as I ended up doing anyway. It’s not like it made a difference, living with her ghost in the house or living with the ghost of her everywhere in my life. But still, I had to sell that beautiful old place. 

When I drove through Cambridge a few months ago I stopped by to see it, and luckily nobody was home, so I sat there in the drive for five minutes just staring at it and fighting the temptation to go walk around the backyard and see what still looked the same, and what had changed...to find any memories of us I might be able to dig up or stumble upon, or if that tree we’d carved our initials into was still standing. 

Did you know in her Wikipedia entry they say she’s rumoured to have been romantically involved with me, but that she won’t confirm or deny it? I’m sure if interested parties really wanted proof they could find it, but Pink Floyd, with the exception of perhaps Roger, are a bunch of private people, and we dated and married a bunch of other private people. Maisie’s reluctance to use my name to bring attention to herself reaffirms that something I loved about her then is still probably true: she wants to do everything on her own merit. 

God, I hate to say this. You’re probably going to think so differently of me now, and so be it, but I don’t talk to anyone but you about this, so you’re the only one I’ll ever say this to. I can’t wait until Syd dies, but it isn’t really about Syd dying. So perhaps I shouldn’t say that, and I’m sorry I did. I don’t mean that I want Syd to die; I don’t, because something inside me tells me that Maisie will be devastated. I just want to make everything I’ve been dreaming about come true...because now I know that it’s possible. 

I know she’ll talk to me. I know that when we see one another, we’ll both realise that if we don’t talk to one another we’ll regret it until the day we die. She’ll take the chance, and so I’ve got to light the spark, but I can’t guarantee it will be long before a fire breaks out. I’ve been waiting for her kiss for far too long.


	79. Roger - Boston, Massachusetts, 1969 - Terri's Apartment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! So I've finished volume 2, and I'm working on your Pompeii bonus scenes. I'm going to (I'm sorry for this, but I did it with Volume 1 also) slow my uploads down to 1 chapter a week so I've got more time to write those and a chunk of vol 3.
> 
> I hope you guys will be joining me to continue this adventure....Vol 3 has the most drama in store for you yet!

_Terri leaves a key under the welcome mat in case she ever loses her keys, and so I let myself in a little bit ago. Just another few minutes until she follows suit and comes home from work. Luckily she lives above the bar, and so I don’t have to wait a long time for her to get here. Her apartment is small, but it’s pretty nice. It’s a studio apartment...a kitchen and bedroom combined, but there’s a little island over by the refrigerator with a few bar stools set up for visitors. Her island counter with its glossy laminate wood is pretty cluttered, with jars and papers littering the very end closest to the wall, as she’s got little other counter space for storage. She’s got candles in the middle of the island ready to light, and I imagine she’s the kind of lady to come home after a hard day, light some candles, and read while enjoying the smell. I pick one candle up and hold it to my nose, and it’s a cocoa scented candle, which makes me think longingly of Maisie. I look around the rest of the room after I sit down on one of the barstools, and her bed is pretty big for a woman who lives alone, but then again she said she has plenty of suitors, so I imagine she entertains quite a few more men here than just myself._

_I wonder where Maisie and David are going to go. They are probably going back to the hotel room they’re sharing together...the one David expressly informed me that I wouldn’t be welcome into. So now they’re staying in their own room alone. I know why I’m not welcome, and I know it’s mostly because I destroyed our cabin in France, but the idea of them sleeping alone together in that room fills me with such fucking dread and anxiety. What if they’re in bed right now, and he’s taking her in his arms and letting her listen to his heartbeat? What if he’s kissing her, taking hold of her face and her waist and enjoying the taste of her lips...the lips that should only be kissing mine? What if they are whispering words of love to one another as they relax in one another’s arms? Now that I’m not there to get in the middle of that and put a stop to it things could be moving closer than ever to the two of them finally admitting their feelings and enjoying the love they share, and that’s the end for me. Not that I had much of a chance, anyway...but I’m hell bent and determined. One day Maisie will be mine, and only mine, and she won't even remember that David exists. I’ll walk the fuck away from the band with her on my arm. I don’t fucking need them anyway, sometimes they’re a bunch of dead weight anyway, limiting me and telling me what I can and can’t do. I can make it without them if it means that she’ll love me, and that I can get here away from David. Now that Syd is out of the way I just need to figure out how to get rid of David, too, but that is likely to be much more difficult...because David isn’t a raving lunatic waiting to lock her in a closet. (Although it might be better for me if he were...can you imagine if I got a second chance to save her from a man who was hurting her, and be her hero? I’d do it so much differently this time.)_

_Just as I’m getting lost in my ruminating, and beating myself up for not going to rescue Maisie from Syd in the first place to have prevented all this mess with David and make her mine again, the door handle turns and she enters, takes off her brown leather jacket, and hangs it on the hook fasted onto the back of her door. She looks up at me, still wearing my own leather jacket, and she stretches her hand out with a coy smile on her face._

_“Come on rock star, did you really think you needed to wear a jacket in my apartment? Hand it over. Make yourself comfortable. If you wanna take your shoes off you can just leave them on the mat next to the door. You know, where all mine are.”_

_I smile despite myself at her teasing, treating me like I should’ve just known to make myself at home. In England we wait until we’re told to do so, but I’ve already learned that Americans are much more informal than we are, and I’d hardly call most of them polite._

_“Thanks,” I say, looking at her for a moment and then quickly averting my eyes as I realise I’m a lot more attracted to her than I originally thought I was. It’s beginning to occur to me that despite what I thought about myself at first, that I like people with some meat on them, but there’s a part of me that feels ashamed and embarrassed...and I hate that, but that’s how I feel. I definitely won’t be telling anyone about Terri, that’s for sure, but some things are meant to stay secrets. Not like I tell anyone about most of my conquests, anyway._

_When I look at her I can’t help but notice the lines around her mouth, indicating a lifetime of beautiful, friendly smiles like this...a happy life, a well-lived, well-loved life. I can’t picture myself aging with those same lines, but to see them in someone else...that makes me happy. That makes me feel like maybe there’s hope. And it’s not just the lines I’m admiring...no, in fact, it’s everything about her. From the hair that’s much too fashionable for a woman her age...the chocolate brown wisps that land on her shoulders...her colour is just like Maisie’s, but she’s got wavy, wispy hair. I’m gazing at her full, unashamed cherry red lips and rouged cheeks. Her eyes sparkle like emeralds, and she looks me over, but now I can’t stop staring at her body. It’s so abundant and so strong, and her breasts...my god, her breasts. Like big, round, soft throw pillows they draw your attention like nothing else, and she knows exactly how to show them off. That black camisole is one of the best decisions she’s made all day...that, and allowing me to come up here. Her hips and her legs are smaller than the rest of her, so she doesn’t have that big beautiful ass that Maisie has, but the rest of her is so appetizing that I don’t think I care._

_“I’m gonna take a shower. Gotta freshen up a bit after that shift. Get yourself something to eat, or whatever you want to do. There’s magazines on the island.”_

_She’s very daring when she walks past me and she pats my ass like that. I spin around and take another long, hard look at her, and that’s not the only thing that’s long and hard, if you catch my drift. I manage to get a hold of her hand, and I lace my fingers through hers._

_“Can I join?”_

_And I think I’m just as daring as she was when I just come out and ask her that. She patted my ass, I’m just gonna have to ask to join her in the shower. I don’t believe women send out signals for no reason, especially clear ones like that._

_“I was hoping you’d ask. I’ve got a combined bath and shower, so we’ll have room.”_

_She winks at me from over her shoulder as she turns to walk away, beckoning me with her eyes, and I quickly take my shoes off, throw them on the mat near hers and follow her into her bathroom. The tiles on the shower wall are white with a few scattered squares of sunny yellow. The tub itself is a rather pukey greenish yellow, but I’m not getting in the shower because I like the tub. I’m getting into the shower because I really, really want to fuck this woman. I’ve been waiting hours to fuck this woman, and I don’t want to have to wait a single second more. She doesn’t seem like she needs to take a long time to warm up._

_She’s gathering towels for us out of the small cabinet she’s put on the wall to hold them, and the second she puts them down on the sink I grab her and pull her into me. I can still fit my arms around her, so that’s pretty nice. Her eyes are welcoming, seductive and lit aflame when they meet mine; there’s a hint of surprise, as if she is more turned on than she anticipated she’d be. Her body feels completely new, and perhaps very alien, to me. I’ve never felt anything quite like it, and it’s almost comforting to hold her like this. I stare right back into her eyes, and then I let my eyes roam over her chest. Her breasts in that black camisole, and the view from up here...damn._

_Terri rests two solid arms on top of my arms, and I creep my hands down over her rounded ass and squeeze both cheeks. After a few more moments of my hands creeping up and down her ass, and her hands moving up into my hair while her fingers swirl around it I take the plunge, and I pull her in towards my lips for a kiss. Our lips brush together, and it’s electrifying. The delicious taste of her coloured lips, and the feeling of being enmeshed with her and all her radiance sends me into a frenzy, I fear, and now I can’t stop. I’m lost in our kisses, and she’s not protesting. She’s a totally willing participant, and now she’s getting just as into it as I am. We’re kissing so hard and so intensely that I almost lose my balance and fall down on my back, but I’m able to catch myself on the wall. That just makes me hungrier: I whip her around and push her into the wall, and she hits with a palpable thud. With my hands resting on the cool white wall I push myself against her body, rubbing my bulge on her belly. God, that feels good. I am so hard. This is unbelievable._

_With an almost formidable force Terri thrusts her arms around me, shoves her tongue down my throat and then moves her hand down to my cock. She grabs onto it, and I’m pulsing now. My cock is jerking a little, the blood is pumping so fast. Fuck, I want her now. Taking my hands away from the wall, I let my hands go wild on her huge pillow breasts, massaging and caressing every inch of them, and I slide my thumbs over her wide nipples. A breathy, lusty moan comes out of her mouth just with that one touch, and so I feel her breasts for a few more seconds before my hand travels over her round, soft belly and down in between her legs. My hand pressed against her mound, I use three fingers to rub her, and her knees start to go weak. I can tell because she starts to wobble._

_“Fuck, you’re good,” she moans in my ear in a voice just above a whisper as she leans her head against my chest and grinds a little more on my hand._

_“That’s just a preview,” I growl, and she tightens her grip on my cock, then moves her hand down to jiggle my balls. “But you’re going the right way to get me to go straight to the main event.”_

_“We wouldn’t want that,” she whispers back to me, and her lips drift along my earlobe in a way that makes me shiver._

_We separate just long enough to tear our clothes off, and I can’t even keep my hands off of her for a second to properly get a look at her body, I’m just going so hard at it. I’m really grabbing her bare breasts now that I can see how big and beautiful they are, and I’m loving her light brown nipples, and the way she squirms when I touch them. I love the way she’s gripping my cock with a dead woman's stiff grip, but she knows exactly how to jerk me off that I’m already getting to a place where I wanna explode. Not yet, though. Not yet._

_“Let me turn on the water. How hot you want it?,” she asks, and for some reason...god damn it...for some reason that makes me think of how Maisie and I used to try to shower together, but she likes her showers way too hot for me to even want to go anywhere near them. That inevitably makes me sad...sad that I may never enjoy another shower with her...and I’m starting to run out of steam now, so when she leans over to turn on the water I start grabbing at her ass again, trying to recreate the feeling that I just had before my brain decided to take a shit on it._

_“Warm. Not...not too hot,” I say with a faltering confidence as I slow down my groping and compensate by leaning over and rubbing what’s left of my erection on her ass until I’m teasing a bit by pushing it in between her cheeks. She wiggles out of my way and turns around, pulling the shower curtain closed as she turns the faucets with an arm reached behind her, giving me a stern look._

_“Now, you ask before you do that, you naughty boy. That’s not something just everyone gets to do, and we’re certainly not gonna be able to do that in my shower.”_

_I kiss her again in response to her chiding, and when we are able to come up for a minute to breathe we step into the shower and continue kissing in there, our arms enveloping each other: mine long and lean, and hers just a little stouter and a lot softer. Her body is warm just like Maisie’s, or maybe it’s just the water. Maybe it’s just that even now when I’m trying to fuck somebody I think I actually like, I’m thinking about Maisie instead._

_Fuck. Press on._

_I want to get out of this shower, because I really don’t think we’re gonna make the best of one another in here. Sex in a shower is hard and uncomfortable. That’s got to be it. That’s got to be why I’m having a hard time. It’s just a gross, ugly environment, and people shit in here. I don’t want to fuck in a room where people shit. Never liked fooling around in the loo anyway._

_So the rest of the shower goes by with more petting and kissing, but I haven’t made any final moves. No, now we’re both washed and dried and sitting on her bed, the one that’s on the other side of the kitchen, and that will never be normal to me._

_She threw one of her bathrobes, a fluffy white one, at me when we stepped out of the shower, and I’m wearing only that. She’s only wearing a blue one made of the same cloth, so we’re both very exposed, and now I’m sort of enjoying myself again. She looks pretty good in that bathrobe, I notice as a thick, fleshy thigh peeks out of the part of her robe that she can’t keep completely closed, and I see a little of one of the prodigious cushions on her chest peeking out too, inviting me._

_Without makeup she still looks more beautiful than any other woman I saw tonight … that wasn’t Maisie. Yeah, she does. She does a real good job of washing her face off, too, because it’s clear the nasty stuff hasn’t done any damage to her skin. It’s real nice that she takes such good care of her skin, too. Her eyes look just as much like emeralds as they did when they were lined and shadowed, and her lips are still just as tempting without their sinful shade of cherry red...her cheeks still as round and youthful without the dusting of pink rouge. Her hair’s wet, hanging around her shoulders, slathered in the same kind of stuff both Maisie and Cora use on their hair. She smells like flowers. She’s got a real thing for girlish floral scents, it seems._

_Her lively, sea green eyes make their way from my face to my legs, and she spends quite a bit of time gazing at my chest after I catch on to her and I let my robe open a little to show it off. I smile at her when I notice that she’s blushing. I know I’ve got a pretty nice body; I’ve worked pretty damn hard on it lately hoping to beef up a little bit like David has, and I’m still skinny, but I’m a lot more cut now. And I like that she likes it. Her breathing is growing more rapid, and finally she reaches for me and pulls me in for another kiss, and I push her down onto her back. Her eyes shine up at me, a mischievous glare playing around inside them, and the corners of her lips turn up in a sly smile. I can tell she doesn’t like to waste her time, either._

_“You really know what you want, don’t you?”_

_“I do,” I whisper to her as I slide a hand beneath her bathrobe, and she spreads her legs to let my hand in. I swirl my fingers around in her pubic hair and then open her pussy lips to circle my fingers around her clit. She arches her back and I thrust my cock against her legs as I keep on pleasuring her with my hand. I feel like I’m pushing a button. She’s so sensitive, every little touch sends her into a tailspin. Just like…_

_Just like…_

_Blast it all. I can’t even do this for two seconds with anyone else without thinking about her._

_Gotta get myself back on track, is all._

_I shut my eyes tight and get myself back in the game, aware that I may not have another chance like this one to hook up with a woman I’m really, really into, and focus as hard as I can on rubbing myself on her meaty, strong thigh to keep my erection raging and pulsing like it was in the bathroom when I first put her against the wall. I slip two fingers inside her wet, gaping hole, and she moans like nothing I’ve ever heard before when I discover how easily they slide in and out. She’s about ready for me to slide myself in and fuck her brains out, but I’ve always been told not to rush. Not like it made any difference with any of the others…_

_“You need to fuck me now, baby, I’m running out of patience,” she growls in my ear, and I don’t need any more encouragement to sit up, tear my robe off, throw it on the ground and scramble to untie the knot that’s holding her robe closed._

_I pull her robe open and get ready to mount, but she holds up a finger. Dismayed, I stop, hoping she’ll give me any kind of signal to keep going before long._

_“Let’s do it this way,” she whispers as she turns over on her stomach and lifts her big, padded ass in the air. “Feels better for me this way, is that alright with you?”_

_“Yeah, that’s fine with me,” I say as I grab onto both her hips and guide her legs a little further apart. I stare at her backside, at least as much as I can see of it now that she’s turned the lights off (which I wish she wouldn’t, I’d like to get a better look at her from all angles), and I admire every single plentiful, voluptuous inch of it as I maneuver myself inside her._

_My cock hits her cervix as I force myself inside her narrow canal, and a muffled, pleasurable scream comes out of her mouth from down there on the mattress. Letting her moans and her screams guide the speed and strength of my movements, I alternate between forceful and gentler thrusts, faster thrusts and slower ones. My balls are slapping against her plump ass as my thrusts get faster and harder now that I feel like I’m close to cumming, and I’m fully in the moment. I’m enjoying the fuck out of this. Her body feels so fucking good to every part of me, and I’m not gonna be able to last much longer._

_“Fuck, Roger, you’re good,” she moans, and that sets forth a chain reaction...because the last girl who I believed when she said that was Maisie._

_Now I can’t stop thinking about her. Her face and her body...her hair and her velvet baby’s skin...her breathy moans of surrender, and her squeals...everything about her floods my entire being as I’m inside of Terri and fucking her so hard that it feels electric. There’s shocks of pulses flowing through my body, propelling me to slam into her, to give everything I’ve physically got to our fucking. But right before I cum Maisie flashes into my head again, and I’m thinking about that night where I fucked her ass on the floor...and now I start to feel regret. If I can just hold off on that thought until I can cum, and then I can stew in my self-hatred later…_

_And here it comes. I know it’s coming now and so I force myself in with one more furious thrust of my hips against her ass, and I squirt my cum inside her. It was against my better judgment; I usually pull out, but it felt so amazing, and then I came so fast that I didn’t have time. Out of breath and completely knackered, I let myself go soft inside of her, and then I lean back to watch my cum dripping down her thighs. Then I throw myself down on the bed and stare up at the ceiling, and after a few minutes of us both lying there, she on her stomach and me on my back, I can tell she knows something’s up._

_She turns over onto her side, and she places her hand on my chest, hesitating at first, her hand floating in the air before deciding at last to try to touch me. I exhale a deep breath of relief, for I’m starting to torture myself, and for some reason when it’s a stranger who tries to comfort you it feels acceptable._

_There’s one more long, awkward stretch of silence before she breaks it and poses the exact question I didn’t want her to ask._

_“So is the brunette the reason that you were having a little trouble there, and why you seem so disconnected now, or do you usually get that way after you have great sex like that?”_

_Even when she’s trying to comfort me she teases, and I kind of like it. I like that boldness about her._

_Before I answer, I take my time to consider...to weigh the pros and cons. In the end, I decide that there’s more reasons to tell her than to keep it to myself. I have always kept it to myself, and I’ve suffered so much as a result that now that someone who I know will never tell her is asking me, I really, really need to let it out._

_“Maisie, yeah. It is Maisie, and it’s always her. Most of the time, if I seem off, or I seem disconnected it’s because I’m thinking about her.”_

_“You sound a little obsessed, if I’m being honest.”_

_I peer over at her, kind of amazed that she’d have the audacity to just call me out like that, and then ...yeah, I can’t be cross with her for that or act defensive. I am obsessed, and there’s no reason to deny it if someone is actually making a point to mention it. And further, I can’t believe I’m not angry. I don’t like it when anyone confronts me with the reality of myself so bluntly...Rick’s done it once or twice, and I’ve ended up threatening to throw him out of the band even though I didn’t really mean to do that. But with Terri I’m not angry at all; I just feel like I can accept the criticism._

_I pause before speaking._

_“Yeah, I am obsessed.”_

_“I could feel you starting to fade when we were fooling around in my bathroom. Does your mind wander off during sex a lot, or…”_

_There’s a change in her voice. She sounds like she’s feeling insecure for the first time tonight, and I fear so deeply that she thinks it’s personal, like it’s somehow about her and her body, but it isn’t that at all._

_“Look, to be honest with you, Terri, I have a serious girlfriend back in Cambridge where I’m from, and she looks just like a model, and I sometimes don’t cum when I fuck her. So it isn’t you. I stop enjoying sex that I have with anyone else, because the pain of it just … not being Maisie...that’s a great way to kill an erection.”  
“I figured,” she says, and she leans her head on my shoulder. _

_Grateful for the contact my arm finds its way around her shoulders and I just sit and enjoy the feeling of closeness to anyone at all for a few moments before I let out another sigh._

_“I...I can’t help it,” I practically whine at her, “I just didn’t realise I was in love with her until...until…”_

_“Go ahead. Is this the first time you’re telling somebody?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“You can just spill it. I don’t have to be up in the morning,” she muses._

_“I didn’t realise I was in love with her until after I’d treated her like shit for months and months. I used to sit in my study writing music, and I’d just lock her out of there, and when she knocked and tried to come in to be with me I’d snap at her. Tell her to go away. It was never a good time, and I never wanted it. Until one day I started to realise that I did want it, but I didn’t want to actually follow through with it at all because I felt like it wasn’t worth it. Then it went from that to sort like meaning to go through with it, but finding that I was blocked somehow. It was all a downward spiral...she was a virgin, and I knew right from the off that I was using her for sex, and I didn’t catch my feelings in time to avoid fucking it up.”_

_“Then what happened?”_

_She sounds like she’s really interested._

_“Well…” I say with some difficulty,” she got so angry with me one night that she stormed off to go see my best friend Syd, who she clearly liked more than me, and she got with him, but then he hurt her. He just had a...a sort of break with reality, I guess, and we had to throw him out of the band. He locked her in a fucking closet for nearly a week, and now she’s, you know, staying with David.”_

_“Sounds like you used her for sex, alright, but she seems like she does get around. Three guys in one band? I can’t decide if I hate her or I want to be her.”_

_“Well…” I say after a long pause, “I’ve been in love with her for so long now. Two years. Three in the spring. I think I’ve been in love with her since the beginning. I met her in the Cambridge Memorial Park taking a walk somewhere, and I went and got her. Thought she was cute. And it turned out that I mean...I’m so deeply entrenched in this love I have for her that it’s killing me. I drink so much more often now than I did before I met her. Sometimes the feelings are so strong, and so painful that I…” -and now my voice trails off because I can feel the lump in my throat that I always get when I’m about to cry- “I have to get drunk to feel less terrible.”  
“Look, do you want my advice, baby?”_

_Do I want her advice? I think if I’m going to get advice then it’s best from a stranger, because anyone else would be biased._

_“Yeah, go for it.”_

_“Before she finally gets it going with that other guy, you snatch her up. You go to her and you tell her everything. Tell her how much you miss her. But you need to break up with this other woman you’re seeing, because you’re doing her a huge injustice not only by sleeping with other women, but also by not being able to give your heart to her. What’s your girlfriend’s name?”_

_“Cora,” I admit, unwilling to even dwell upon the thought of breaking up with her. I’d rather just run off with Maisie and let Cora try forever to figure out whatever happened to me._

_“Well, Cora deserves better than a guy who’s busy loving someone else. Cora’s a great girl, isn’t she? She’s a nice girl, I bet. You seem like you kind of like playing at having a normal existence, so you’d go with a nice girl.”_

_“Yeah, Cora’s nice. She’s got a lot going for her, it’s just that I don’t…”_

_“You don’t love her.”_

_The silence lingers like rotten fruit about to fall off the vine. I don’t know what to say. Admitting out loud that I don’t love Cora at all, and I barely even like her most days? That’s not something I was ready to do._

_“Well?,” she continues, “Do you?”_

_“No, I suppose I don’t,” I say, ripping the bandage off before I can stop to regret it. “I don’t think I ever...I don’t think I ever really have.”_

_“Look, Roger. I’ve been around for awhile now, and I’ve got quite a number of chances I never took under my belt with men that I regret now at my age. You live and you learn, but if I could go back and tell that special man that I loved him even though he was my best friend’s husband...well, I might have. She turned out to be a backstabber, anyway. But I would’ve loved that man to the last day of my life, and I let him run off with her instead. Don’t make the same mistake. But you let that other nice girl go before you do.”_

_“See, it’s complicated, though.”_

_“Why’s that?,” she asks, almost like she’s heard it all before...heard every reason why a man can’t leave his girlfriend before. I wonder if she’s had men tell her this after they’d already started having sex._

_“It’s just her and I being together, it’s all expected now. She’s part of my social circle. I tried to keep her out of it for as long as I could to make it easier to break up with her, but she met Maisie, and Maisie adores her...I mean, for fuck’s sake they’re nearly best friends. They’re always together when David and I are busy. Doing each other’s makeup, looking at fashion magazines, and that. They’re inseparable.”_

_“Oh, I see. So the girl you want …”_

_“It’s not just wanting, Terri. I don’t just want her. I’m dying. I’m dying every single day that I can’t be with her…”_

_“Alright, alright, Roger, I get it. I can hear in your voice how frantic you are, and how much this weighs on you. And it’s made all that much worse by the fact that she’s involved with a guy in your band, and your current girlfriend is a good friend of hers.”_

_“Yes,” I stammer as my voice starts to shake. I try to control the tears, but they won’t stop coming now, and I’m sobbing. She holds me a little tighter, and the pressure from her arms is relaxing, but for some reason relaxing means that the tears just come faster. I can’t help it; they’re falling from me like a torrential downpour, just drenching and ruining all of my skin on my face. It’s so bad that it stings. “Yes, and I have no way out. I’m doomed. I can’t break up with Cora now, she’s met my mother.”_

_“So you’ve dug yourself into a hole, basically. You don’t love this woman you just took to meet your mother, but you love someone else who doesn’t love you at all.”_

_“She hates me,” I moan through more tears as my guts start to seize, the bleakness and the vastness of these feelings taking possession of my entire body and soul. “She doesn’t even want to look at me, and I … I just want to love her.”_

_After a few more seconds of letting me sob, Terri sits up and pulls me into her pillowy soft embrace, smushing me against her breasts and rocking me like a child, but instead of feeling humiliated and emasculated by that like perhaps I should, or even usually would, I just grab onto her. Every messy, teary-eyed, sobbing bit of me is grateful for the comfort of her touch as I allow her plump arms to envelop my body. My body...my body which has all but completely failed me. This was supposed to be the night I was allowed to forget._

_It had so much promise. Now it’s just the same as all the others, except that it isn’t quite like that. No, before tonight, every woman I met on the road was nothing but a warm hole. Terri’s different.  
“Tell me about Maisie,” she says, clearly trying to distract me from my sobbing, and I raise my head from between her breasts and look into her friendly green eyes. She’s smiling now. She’s really interested. She really gives a fuck about what I think and what I feel._

_“Maisie’s real bloody smart. You wouldn’t really know unless you sat and listened to her talk about things, but she loves American politics and sociology, and reads a lot of smart books. I stole her copy of Brave New World and read it after she finished it, actually. She doesn’t like to talk to me about smart things, but I love to listen to her talk about them.She’s friendly, but if she doesn’t like someone she doesn’t care to try to hide it, so she’s a bit cold that way...but that’s not her default. She loves to bake, and she’s a pretty good cook, and she loves to play with makeup and do her hair. She’s not really funny, but she loves it when other people make her laugh. She loves brand name clothing and things, she’s got very expensive taste, but it’s because she grew up rich. She’s a trust fund baby, I think, she’s got her trust fund now that she moved out of her parents’ house. She’s not actually British, she’s American. Her parents shipped her off to jolly old England when she turned 18 so she could lose weight and go to finishing school. They wanted to marry her off, and they thought she was too fat and not pretty enough for a man to choose her. She lost some weight and such, and that’s when I met her. I came to find out her life at that house with her aunt and uncle and cousins was so terrible that I couldn’t let her stay there, and that’s how she got to be the first girl that I ever lived with. She’s got this way...she will look you in the eyes when she likes you, but if you look back at her she’ll smile and she’ll look away. She doesn’t like how she looks, and it scares her when people she likes look at her sometimes. She’s really, really shy. When she smiles, it lights my heart up. Her eyes sparkle when she looks at you...no matter how she feels about you, they always sparkle. She has a loud, buoyant laugh sometimes, but sometimes she giggles like a schoolgirl. And she leaves me absolutely breathless.”_

_Before I leave at 7 a.m. I leave her with my address. I don’t know if she’ll ever write to me, but at least she could if she ever chose to._


	80. Rosemary - Cambridge, July 2006 - Rosemary's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosemary watches her granddaughter.

Ian and his wife, who is entirely too chipper and happy for a woman who’s just given up her entire life and all of her sleep to an infant, dropped their brat off two hours ago for me to watch it. They’d called to ask if they could have lunch alone together today, and walk round the shops, and I couldn’t find any real reason to say no. Keeping up appearances is of the utmost importance, and I’m trying very hard to play the doting grandmother, as much as I find myself just hating the role. How is it that other women feel so blessed and thrilled to become grandmothers, and yet I feel so disappointed and annoyed? It’s just another thing that needs me to take care of it. 

I couldn’t get the wretched thing to stop crying, though. I tried everything I could possibly think of: I fed it, I changed its nappy, I rocked it, I tried to play a stupid peek-a-boo game with it, and I could not, for the life of me, find anything that worked to stop the infernal screaming and howling. It doesn’t surprise me; Ian was the same way as a baby. A whiny brat, that is. Oh, but ‘she’s such a calm baby’, Jill says. Mothers always think the best of their children, don’t they? Luckily this one’s a girl, and her mother’s overestimation of her personality won’t lead to an inflated ego like it so often does with little boys. No, she’ll just come to hate herself later in life like all women do, and her mother’s lies to her as she ages to boost her already fragile confidence will just feed into that. Such a calm baby...what a blooming riot. It’s been two hours of endless shrieking.

So, about a half hour ago I gave up, I stuck it in its cradle in my bedroom, and I closed the door. I was at my wit’s end; I started to get this urge to shake her and shake her until she finally went silent, but I know better. I’d never harm a child, first of all. What good would it do me to hurt her in any way? At least if I had killed off my brother like I’d planned to it would’ve served me in some way in the end. It’s not as if I’d have grieved over his loss. I didn’t grieve a second for Alan unless I was under someone else’s eyes. When Ian, my mother, Roger, and other family were about to notice, I would shed tears or wistfully recall good memories, or even have a proper sobbing spell. But left to my own devices I only ever felt relief that the chore of keeping up the illusion of a fulfilling marriage was over, and that I had the only thing he was ever under my control, which is where it belonged. ‘It’ being his money, of course. 

At this point I’m happy to finally be rid of Roger, by the way. It’s been 40 years of constant chaos, abuse, drama and sickness that I’ve wasted my life on for him, and for what? My repayment for my years of work is very meager, isn’t it? A few hundred thousand pounds for 40 years of being Roger’s primary caretaker? A few hundred thousand pounds for dragging paintings out of the yard, cleaning up broken glass, fielding harassing phone calls from traumatized neighbours, cleanup, making sure that he was eating more than crisps and fried chicken, driving him to and from every single doctor’s appointment (all of this, by the way, for a measly carer’s allowance benefit). I’ll have you know that I’ve put out so much money for Roger over the years that I often feel like even if he left me the full one million pounds I still wouldn’t have made back my fair share.

Do you know the two of them haven’t called me round or come to visit me in two weeks? I get a curt phone call from May every few days to give me an update on Roger’s condition, which according to her is worsening (she says this in a tone so hushed it makes me think that she’s telling him the opposite), but she said he’s not seeing anyone at the moment and so I shouldn’t come to visit. I don’t buy that whole load of bosh for one second, by the way. I think that she’s talking me down to him. You know, planting seeds in his head about me. She must be saying such awful things about me to my brother for him to say he doesn’t want to see me. Even in Roger’s darkest days when he saw no one else, not even Mum, he always invited me round, or I would pop in and check on him, or he’d ride his bicycle (or wander) to my house. For me to be included on the list of ‘anyone’ that he isn’t seeing...on the level of that friend of his, Kathy, even...it can’t be because it’s what he really wants. I refuse to believe it; this turn of events has ‘his Maisie’ written all over it. Roger always called me his best friend. But if she isn’t lying, and Roger really doesn’t want to see me, well, I don’t need to see him anyway. A lot of bother he was. And the less time I need to spend with that nasty old jism rag he decided to make his wife the better, I say. 

Now, with that brat’s blood curdling screams finally fading, I’m making a list of all of Roger’s possessions that I can think of to sell. After he finally kicks the bucket and I can get into the house I’ll send May out. I’ll pay for her to get herself a meal with Cora Harlow, and when she leaves I’ll comb through everything. I’ll make a meticulous list of every single thing he owns in every nook and cranny and corner of that ugly house: every book, every piece of furniture he insisted on keeping at my house (which is far too many, they’re clogging up my attic space, and that conniving wife of his strongarmed me into taking every single one despite my resistance), his stupid nursery fabric curtains...everything, even down to all his notebooks and saved magazines. I’ll make sure everything he has ever touched and neglected to throw away makes it onto this list so that I can squeeze every single pound out of my brother’s name as I possibly can just to make back what I am owed. Only rubbish won’t be marked to sell, and I might be flexible on the definition of ‘rubbish’ if I felt I could get away with it. 

What do you think May might say to me when I tell her about this auction (and I’m purposely waiting to tell her until after he croaks, you know, so he can’t say no)? Do you think she’ll fight me on it, or will she actually see some sense and let me sell his things off? Perhaps it’s all in how I present it to her. Wouldn’t it be better to make sure his things went to good homes, rather than throwing it all away? I might use that one, seeing as she’s rather sentimental about my brother, if you hadn’t noticed. I might lie and tell her I was going to donate all the money to some charity, and then pocket it all instead. It doesn’t occur to me that she will continue to try and keep up any illusion of a relationship with me at all once she leaves England and goes back home to the lesser England that she came from; it’s not like she’ll be checking on me, or anything.

There is the matter of her being rather suspicious of me, however. 

She, a fellow manipulator, quite possibly sees right through me. It’s rather likely, in fact, that May knows my entire game, and that’s why she’s kept Roger from me lately. I can see it in her shit brown eyes when she looks at me that she could very well see inside of me, and can maybe tell that I’ve got nothing living behind my eyes. She can probably see that I have no soul, and good for her, being so quaintly perceptive. But I’ll get mine in the end, yes?


	81. Maisie - Carlisle, Massachusetts, 1969 - Maisie's Parents' House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and David visit with Maisie's parents and Lynette, her nanny and housekeeper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's what's possibly the longest chapter so far in either volume. It's a really important chapter so I hope you like it! 
> 
> So I've noticed my view count has been dropping, is there anything I can do to correct it? I was sure you guys would love Terri for Roger, but it seems like she's turned some people off which I find disappointing, but I can't please everyone!

_We spent the entire car ride here doing breathing exercises. At some point, David ended up admitting to me that he was nervous, too, and we both had a laugh about it. He had been trying really hard to keep me from worrying too much, but eventually the time came to admit that he had been putting up a front. So knowing that we were both nervous, we spent our time deeply inhaling and powerfully exhaling, and then going over what the worst thing that could happen was just to prepare one another for it. It worked perfectly, because I’m not as nervous now, and I think David is feeling better too. He put this cool British band on, some guys he knows. The Hollies, maybe. He’s singing along with a bright, beautiful smile on his face, and he even gave my hand a squeeze just now when I looked over at him, which made my heart skip a beat. I’m beginning to think that he must really like me, too. It’s just a matter of what to do about it..._

_Anyway, it was only about a half hour drive, and now that we’re coming up the winding cobblestone driveway of my parents’ old, white cape cod mansion I’m starting to feel that nervousness again. With its black shutters, two car garage, dormer windows and a jetty leading to a grand front entrance, it’s still the stuff of nightmares from my childhood, and I guess I thought it might be a little easier to settle that anxiety than it is. (Wow, would it be nice to have some grass right now.)_

_In the center of the circle of the driveway my mother still has her obsessively maintained topiaries, an idea she appropriated from Aunt Eugenia. There’s some weird globular wads of bushes sprinkled around the little island, with a display of mixed shrubbery that were it not almost winter would be sprinkled with sprays of pink flowers. In the summer the ivy would hang effortlessly from the border between the second floor and the garage, but now the vines lie dormant and naked sprawling out over the wall. It snowed recently, I can tell, as the ground is still slushy and leftover snow brown with car exhaust and ripped up dirt and gravel litters corners of the roads. There’s patches of old snow still left in the grass, too. Just like in England the trees in Massachusetts are well on their way into a deep, long sleep, and even the hardy old eastern white pine standing firm and resolute next to the entrance looks tired, carrying bits of snow on his jolly green branches that are starting to weigh heavy. The curtains are open, letting light into the house, and also preventing me from seeing if they’re the same scarlet red ones they were before I was shipped off to England almost four years ago._

_Everything about this house says ‘shame and misery’ when I look at it, and it contrasts so frighteningly well with the feeling of being at home that I have right now in this beat up old Ford rental with the man who for some reason consented to come here and pretend to be my boyfriend for a few hours. Here we are, at my childhood home about to go in and see my parents, and that feels far less like home than wherever I am with David at any time. I wonder if he knows, I think as I turn to look at him and take in every inch of his sunny face. He put his hair up in a bun today, hoping to lessen the blow when my parents laid eyes on him and realized he was really a rocker and not the nice Jewish lawyer they were really hoping I was gonna eventually find and marry(but there really weren’t a lot of Jewish guys hanging out with the girls at the finishing school they put me in, anyway, so…). I really didn’t want him to feel like he had to do that, but it’s really cute._

_“I like your hair in that bun,” I muse, not really meaning for it to slip out, but when he giggles and nods it makes me smile, too._

_“Thanks. I thought I looked a pillock, to be honest with you, but I’m glad you like it. Makes me feel a little better.” He stops for a minute, and when he finally puts the car in park he lets his eyes roam over the vast expanse of the home that I grew up in. “This is a proper mansion, then,” he muses. “You weren’t lying.”_

_“I warned you. You said it couldn’t be that big.”_

_“I stand corrected. It’s plenty big. You sure it was just the three of you in there?”_

_“Yeah, the three of us and all the staff, but they all congregate downstairs. They come in at 5 a.m., and don’t leave until my parents’ heads hit the pillow. If things are the same way they were when I left, Lynette locks up the house every night when she leaves.”_

_“Lynette?,” he asks, clearly intimidated by the idea of visiting a family who have ‘staff’, and I don’t blame him. It’s intimidating for me now to visit, having been without all that for a few years now and doing it all on my own._

_“Yeah, my parents’ housekeeper, but she was also my nanny. They’ve also got a chef and a personal assistant, and they even might still have the second maid and the butler, but maybe they cut down since I moved out. Who knows.”_

_“Wow. Talk about poor little rich girl,” he teases, sticking his tongue out at me. “Well, how about it, then? Are we ready to bite the bullet, take the plunge, and keep a stiff upper lip?”_

_I groan as I let my head fall back, and I stare up at the car’s grey fabric upholstered ceiling, my eyes mapping out all the cigarette burns in it. I offered to pay for a better car, but David really wanted to get a move on, so we took the first thing they had. We laughed about this shitty old thing and its cigarette burns and noisy engine on the way here in between our coping ahead and breathing exercises. I close my eyes, take another deep breath, and reach my hand out. I hope he’ll take it. I hope he’ll know that’s what I’m asking to do._

_And he does. Instinctively, he laces his fingers through mine. I start to clench my thighs and my pelvis as my body rushes with pure, hot, electric sexual energy, but when I open my eyes and I see the way he’s looking at me now that disappears abruptly, and it becomes something else. All of a sudden my eyes are drawn only to David’s full, pilowy, bow-shaped lips and the way they pout so perfectly that he always looks like he’s ready to kiss me whenever we get lost in staring at each other like this, which is happening more and more often lately. When I look up, trying to meet his eyes, I notice that his eyes have been drifting on my lips, too, and then when he realizes he’s been caught his eyes find their way back to mine again. We connect, finding our way to being one, and that’s when it occurs to me that we’re still holding hands. I look over at our hands clasped together: his hand strong and thick with long, calloused fingers, and mine tiny, and pathetic, but gentle, intertwined and morphed into a singular organism._

_David’s eyes hook into mine, and I can feel my cheeks flushing. Embarrassed, I turn to look away, but he brings my face back toward his with the palm of his hand against my cheek. Electrified and nervous, I place my other hand upon his, and I can feel him pulling me toward him. I give in. I’ve been fighting this for so long that now that the walls are finally falling down I don’t want anything else but to finally let this happen._

_His lips find their way to mine, and when our lips meet I’m overtaken with the urge for more, more, and more, and I let my arms enfold him as I grasp him tight against me and let every bit of feeling, and the frustration of having to swallow it all out through the frantic, needy way my kisses land upon his lips. He snakes an arm around my waist, letting go of my hand, and with his other hand reaches for the back of my head. His kisses are full to the brim with the same frustration, the same desperation that mine are, and when we finally part I can’t help it: I lean into his chest and keep my arms fastened around his strong, built chest and back and burrow into him, overflowing with every need I’ve held back for so long now. His body smells like cigarettes and cologne, and it’s a heavenly combination. I love it when I kiss a guy and he tastes and smells like cigarettes. David tightens his grip on me, and his entire body heaves a long, relieved exhale. His shoulders drop and his chest sinks, and his padded, but strong belly relaxes._

_“I thought I’d never find the right moment to finally kiss you,” he confesses from above my head while I still find shelter in between his strong, firm pecs. “I thought I’d keep putting it off like I have been since that night we danced together before the party, and it’d never happen, and by the time I finally found the courage you’d have met somebody else and I’d have lost you,” he lets out in one fast breath with an embarrassed laugh._

_“I wouldn’t have met anybody else, because I’d have been wasting too much time worrying you’d reject me if I kissed you like I wanted to since then, too,” I confess, peering up into the fresh, clear water pools of his eyes._

_He looks around the grounds looking for anybody who might be watching us, and then I join him, because the last thing I need or want is for either my mother or my father, or any of the staff, looking in on us during this beautiful moment that we’ve both waited so long for. Nobody’s here; we’re all alone, thank god. And now that I know it I don’t feel any hesitation. Who cares if we’re a little late? Not like she deserves the respect of my punctuality, anyway._

_“Listen…”, he starts, lifting a hand to stroke my hair....his voice as soft as a gentle rain and full of all the cheerful hesitation he can possibly muster. “I’ve liked you for so long now. I mean, I really fancy you quite a lot, actually, and have for awhile now. Years, even. I think we’ve been perhaps dancing around all this, perhaps both of us worried we’d be rejected, and I’d like to make it official.” He turns my face up to look at him, and I’m staring into his eyes while my heart races and my body bursts into flames. This is the moment I’ve been dreaming about! “Can I just call you my girlfriend already? Can we just be honest with one another? I know you like me, too. You wouldn’t let me get so close to you if you didn’t. So why are we holding out on one another like this?”_

_“As long as I can call you my boyfriend,” I tease, and I lift my hand to stroke his smooth, glossy dark blonde hair, too. My hand traces the bottom of his jawbone, now, and we lose control of ourselves to our smiles, and our blushing, and our laughter. Now that we can go into this situation honest about what we are, I am not feeling nearly so scared. A lot of my fear was just that I really, really wanted the lie to be real._

_“To be honest with you, I had hoped you would,” he teases right back with a scrunch of his nose and a furrowed brow._

_I’ve managed to crawl over the center console and make my way into his lap, which is where I’ve been wanting to be for months now...curled up in his lap just like this, wrapped in his arms with his hands in my hair. Now if only we had the time and space to get down to it and get into our bed and fuck all night long I think I’d be in Heaven. In a few hours we’ll be off to another hotel, and who knows what could happen. I’ve been holding myself back for awhile._

_“Alright, let’s get out and go do this,” I force out with a long, exasperated breath._

_“Let’s get to it, then.”_

_I open the door and step out, and he steps out right after me, and he snakes his arm around my shoulder with careful protectiveness: a support, a safety net. A soft place to land. Even if Mother’s mean to me, it’ll be fine. Even if she calls me fat, I must be doing something right as a fat girl to have scored a guy like this, so she can fuck right off._

_“I don’t wanna do this,” I whine like an exhausted, entitled teenager (and I know how I sound, at least I’m honest). I throw my head back one more time with an obvious childish pout playing on my lips and let out one more desperate, pathetic whine. I hate this house. I hate this stupid, stuffy town. I hate these parents, and I hate that I’ve been cursed with these parents. It’s not the growing up wealthy that I feel cursed by, but I feel cursed for being born wealthy in a family of these two narcissistic assholes._

_“It’ll be fine, Maisie. Honestly, I think I’ll pass their test even though I’m a dirty rocker hippie longhair, or whatever Americans say about men like me. Probably the same things the folks in England say about men like me, anyway.”  
“I’m not worried about what they think of you,” I say as I lean my head back again, this time to meet his eyes way up there. Not as tall as Roger, but still a good 9-10 inches taller than me (I’m about 5’0 or 5’1, by the way, in case you hadn’t gathered by now that I’m vertically challenged). His eyes are so warm, and so reassuring. I couldn’t care less what that old pill head thinks about David. He makes me feel so amazing, and we are totally financially comfortable. “I’m worried about the problems she’s going to give me. My father is liable to just sit there, anyway, and maybe grumble. He’d rather be off with his lover, anyway…”_

_“That’s right, your dad’s a bit puffy, isn’t he?”_

_We laugh and laugh at that comment, because yeah...my dad’s gay, and him desperately hiding from the truth is pretty hilarious. Sometimes it was hard to even look at Henry because every time I did I thought about him on the floor being fucked by that other weird old man in his office. Gross. Anyway, we just found ourselves walking under the jetty and up the black, glossy front steps. I gaze around over the lovely wrap around front porch, painted white with black gingerbreads, filled with wicker furniture topped with red floral outdoor furniture cushions. There’s a different kind of potted plant in the corner by the door. Some big, exotic looking thing that doesn’t grow around there. On the right side of the door there’s my mother’s favorite umbrella holder, the iron wrought thing, all rusted over now after years of sitting outside to oxidize, but it’s still stocked full of umbrellas ready for Maxine to take out and put over her freshly coiffed hair, pressed flat so she can look more Anglican and less Jewish. I stretch my hand out to press my finger against the doorbell, but I freeze before I push it. I take one last deep breath and finally summon the will to ring it, knowing full well that within seconds somebody will be opening up the door, and I’ll have to face my parents for the first time since they shipped me off (and I don’t care what she says, she did ship me off because she was worried I’d never be beautiful enough to get picked by a man and get married otherwise)._

_I click my tongue and bounce up and down on my feet with shaky nervousness, and David tightens his grip on my shoulder and pulls me a little closer to his side. After another second or two the bouncing and the clicking stops, and my resolve hardens. The reddish brown pine door with the useless, decorative gold knocker creaks as someone opens it, and I swallow air as my heart starts to race again and I feel a stirring in the pit of my stomach. Anxiety. Great._

_When the door opens, my heart bursts with joy seeing her there. It’s Lynette! It’s really Lynette! As long as this is the first face I’m seeing, we’re already off to a great start. When she sees me her eyes widen and immediately, and without any hesitation at all, she runs to me and practically steals me out from under David’s strong arm and pulls me into a tight bear hug. She starts to shake with tears and she kisses me all over my head and my face with her plump, painted lips. I must have some stains on my face now, but I don’t care. I’ll wash them off in the bathroom. A thrilled, ecstatic laughter erupts from inside her, a booming, unrestrained laugh. One of my favorite sounds in the world._

_“Miss Maisie!,” she screams, rocking me back and forth. When she pulls away she grabs both of my shoulders and surveys me. She takes a good, long look at me, and I stare back at her, taking in every line that’s etched its way into her kind face since we last saw one another. Her skin: crisp, glossy wenge wood shining with the glow of a life well lived, and few regrets, feels cool against my hand as I grip onto her forearms, skin drooping just a little with age. “You look more beautiful than ever. Love looks mighty good on you,” she says with a smile as she peers around at David. At the mention of the word ‘love’ the hairs on the back of my neck stand at alert and I feel them bristling with excitement. Maybe one day. “Is this the boyfriend?,” she murmurs as she glances back at me, a smile playing off her beautiful, motherly face._

_“I’m David,” he says as he sticks out his hand to her. She takes his hand and shakes it, then makes a point of patting the back of it with a disarming smile. If he was nervous, he probably won’t be for long. Lynette is surely arresting, and she puts everybody at ease. That’s why she’s stuck around my mother for so long; most of the staff quit after a few years of dealing with my mother and her moods, her drug problem and her increasing demands. Lynette knew exactly how to handle her, and she knew she had to stay for me. She knew I would’ve suffered so much without her._

_“Well, charmed, I’m sure,” she says with a giggle. “You are a handsome one, mmhm. You done good, Miss Maisie,” she says as she tousles my hair. “Why don’t y’all come inside? Miss Maxine and Mr. Henry are in the living room having coffee.”_

_“Would you stop calling us Miss and Mr., please, Lynette?”_

_“You parents like it, baby. Ain’t nothing I can do about it anymore. I’ve been here 20 some-odd years now, no need to go rocking the boat. I won’t call you Miss Maisie anymore, alright? Just came back home and already with your fresh mouth. Unbelievable,” she says as she hooks her arm through mine and with her other hand gives my arm a squeeze._

_David follows behind us, but he reaches for my hand and follows suit, squeezing it. I know he’s trying to reassure me, and so I turn my head as I walk in tandem with Lynette through our majestic entrance hall, too auspicious for my taste. The walls and the grand, wide staircase are white, but the stairs are decorated with a blue and white diamond carpeting that I always found tacky. The staircase’s banisters are a smooth, amber wood, and they fan out at the bottom, each side pointing the opposite way, directing a visitor to either side of the house. On the right we have the parlor (for entertaining acquaintances and important folks, of course), and the living room for entertaining family and friends. On the left we have the dining room, my father’s study, the library, my mother’s conservatory and the first floor bathrooms. On top of the stairs, above the landing, there’s a large bay window the same color as the amber brown wood of the banisters, and it reflects so much late afternoon sunlight onto the landing, which also hosts a small table under the window holding some of my mom’s fresh cut flowers. There’s a white column, tall and fat, standing next to the stairwell and giving the impression that it’s holding up the second floor, but it’s just for show, just like everything else in this fake house. The white walls are littered with gold plated sconces that look like they’re burning with open flame, but it’s just lightbulbs. And the centerpiece, the focal point of the entire room (if you could believe it’s not the staircase) is the ornate marble fountain with a cherub on top with a horn playing a silly tune, and silly fake white vines hanging from its largest bowl. It’s a double decker, and yes, it actually runs._

_I look back at David one more time, and I can read how intimidated he is by how much my parents own as his eyes fall curiously over the entirety of this grand, tacky room and how much must be too much. I agree, it’s too much. I shoot him a quick smile, and he catches it, and I watch him come to ease much faster than maybe he might have if I hadn’t done it. That makes me feel a lot better, too, knowing I could make him smile after he had been nervous._

_And now we’re in the living room, and my jaw drops to the floor when I see what my mother had done to it. I guess when she found out she couldn’t sell the house (if she really ever intended to sell it at all) she figured why not go crazy? It looks like the perfect party room for her now: wooden walls and a wooden ceiling with a tan semi-circle shaped sectional couch plopped right in front of the fireplace, and in the middle of the semi-circle there’s a thick layer of brown shag carpeting that makes me want to retch just looking at it. On top of the carpeting, right in the middle, mom put a little end table with a glass top that’s holding another pot of fresh cut flowers. In the back window I see the Menorah, and it looks like she’s updated that, too. The last menorah we used for Hanukkah before I left was old and beat up, but this one is new and very black and modern. One candle has already been lit, likely by Lynette, as I’m sure Mom didn’t remember to light it. And speaking of the fireplace? Wow, she made that over, too. The new hearth is raised a good foot off the floor, and it’s made out of that same glossy wood she’s used for the walls and ceiling. The jambs of the fireplace are made out of some kind of smooth, shiny beige stone with little black flecks, and it’s got two glass doors on it to keep the fire in. The fire is, of course, going strong, making the room feel and smell cozy. She’s put some kind of a weird painting above the fireplace, a weird blue abstract thing with some lime green squiggles. Probably one of her weird friends painted it for her._

_I stare at the back of my mother’s head (a dyed brown Liza Minelli pixie cut is apparently what she’s sporting now), and I place my hand up to interrupt Lynette before she announces that I’ve arrived. I slip my arm through David’s arm, move in closer to him, and take one more deep breath before I open my mouth to call out to her. I don’t see Henry anywhere, but I’m not surprised, and I care very little._

_“Hey, Mom,” I say confidently, hoping that there’s no hint of fear in my voice. I don’t want to give her anything to feed off of._

_She turns around, carrying a cup of tea, and I look her over, three years removed from any idea of what she might have looked like. She looks like she’s lost some weight of her own, only being about twice my size now instead of three times my size, and all her girth is stuffed into a pale blue cotton swing dress with a white belt struggling around her waist. She’s wearing white low-heeled shoes, although I’m not sure how she manages to walk in heels. (You know - I wouldn’t say anything about her size except that she spent so much of my life bullying me about mine, and she was always fatter.) Her lips are ‘too young’ red, and she’s wearing rouge on her cheeks.  
When our eyes meet she doesn’t run toward me like Lynette did. She doesn’t smile, she doesn’t squeal with joy upon laying eyes on her only child who was lost with no word for two years. No, she just...looks at me. Indeed, she looks me over exactly like I looked her over...with roaming, judging chocolate brown eyes, eyes that could make even the most confident woman shrivel under their scrutiny. Her eyes move down over my hips, checking for a visible belly outline (she never let me wear anything on the bottom that clung too hard to my belly without any kind of control girdle on underneath), and shaking her head and clicking her tongue when she sees one. She grabs at my belly, holding what little is left of it in her hands and pulling on it like she’s trying to pull it off me. _

_“All that money we spent on Ms. Havisham’s, and you still have that little pouch.” Now she moves in to kiss me, and when her lips land on my cheek I don’t move to return the gesture, but instead I freeze. I don’t even touch her. I’m not interested. “You look beautiful though, honey. You do. You’ve lost so much weight!”_

_Ugh._

_I nod, and whisper a small ‘thanks’, noting that she didn’t ask me a thing about how I was doing, or express any real maternal love, or anything. Just a comment on my weight. That’s about what I expected, so I can’t say I’m disappointed._

_She pulls away now, and her eyes fall on David, roaming over every inch of him with the same cold, unimpressed scrutiny. I can hear it now: ‘his hair’s too long’; ‘he dresses like a hippie’; ‘that beard is a bit much, isn’t it?’ With my arm still in his, he moves his free hand up to place over mine like a protective coating, and I can tell that he’s steeling himself. He can take it. I think he knew it was coming before he even walked in._

_But still, once she’s done scanning him and looking for flaws, her reception of him is a lot more warm than the reception she gave me. She quickly moves away from me and runs toward him, throws her arms around him (not even stopping to think for a second that it might throw us off balance, which it does, and I trip and fall on the floor … real nice, Mom), and lets out a loud, thrilled squeal. I know what this is. She’s just happy to see a man next to me._

_David, unsure of what he’s supposed to do, pats her gently on the back and then pulls away to help me up off the floor. I look up at him with gratitude in my eyes, and once I’m standing he pulls me right back into him like nothing had happened. He looks my mother right in the eye, and while he’s smiling I know him well enough to know that there’s a challenge behind that smile. There’s a ‘keep going and see what happens’ behind those otherwise friendly blue eyes. Any fear he had disappeared when she all but shoved me on the floor like that._

_“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Wells,” David says in his best British gentleman voice. She might not be able to hear, but I know how David speaks, and I can hear and feel every layer of fake that he’s painted onto himself to talk to her._

_“Oh, dear, I am so, so happy to meet you. What did you say your name was? I don’t think Maisie ever told me,” she says, with one quick glance my way before going back to ignoring the fact that I even exist._

_“I’m David,” he says coolly, still squeezing me hard against him._

_“David what? We know a lot of families in England. My husband has a side business there that his sister helped him get off the ground, and so we’ve dealt with so many English folks that we might as well be English ourselves!”_

_“Gilmour. I doubt you know my family. We don’t get up to much,” he jokes._

_“You’re right, I don’t. But why don’t you come and sit down? Maisie, feel free to take a seat, too,” she says, all eyes on David. She attempts to take his arm and lead him away from me, but he won’t let go. His resoluteness stuns her, I can tell, and she walks away to seat herself on the couch._

_I lead David to sit on the side opposite of her, and when I sit down I find it’s very comfortable. I sink right down in it, in fact. Unfortunately, though, this is the kind of couch that won’t last very long before it gets worn out. She’ll have to get rid of it to get something newer, something nicer. But that’s not something that’s ever bothered her. In fact, she probably bought the thing with the intention of replacing it soon. God forbid she keep her living room looking ‘old fashioned’, as if the rest of the house isn’t old fashioned._

_“So...I like the new living room, Mom,” I say, unsure of what else to say to her. Since she hasn’t asked me how I’m doing I don’t think I’m just gonna freely offer up the information. I’m certainly not telling her everything, even if she does ask._

_“Thank you, dear. We had a friend of Daddy’s come and do it. I picked out everything myself, all the furniture was delivered from his flagship store in New York City. It’s free for us, of course, but everything was top of the line. Don’t you love the fireplace? I think it’s just divine. So, David,” she says, turning right back to him. “Tell me about yourself. What do you do?”_

_David looks over at me nervously as if this question was the one thing he was afraid of. To tell a Jewish mother you’re a musician? Forget about it. She might have my head. After all, Aunt Rachel’s daughter just married a surgeon, remember? The whole reason she sent me off was to attract a surgeon, or an attorney, or an accountant, or this, or that, blah blah blah, my trust fund isn’t enough...gotta have a rich husband. Oh well, David will have millions of dollars one day._

_“I’m a musician. I play guitar, saxophone, keyboard...we all play a lot of instruments in my band, but I mainly play the guitar.”_

_Her face clouds over with derision, but she’s able to shake it off after a few seconds. I know David saw it, though, because his eyes widen a bit with fear and he grips me a little harder around my waist. It must be so nerve wracking to have to go through this for him, because it is for me and she’s -my- mother._

_“Ah, a musician. Do you have another job, or…”_

_“Playing music is my job, ma’am,” David affirms. “It’s a lot of work to write and record and play music all the time, so I really don’t have time for much else.”_

_“That must not be very lucrative,” she spits with a hell of a whole lot of judgment. “We just want to make sure our daughter is taken care of, you know?”_

_“Mom,” I interrupt, “We are very comfortable. He brings in enough, and I’ve got my trust fund…his band is already pretty famous. I mean, we’re here, they’re touring in America. They’re gonna be really, really big in a few years.”_

_“Yes, well,” she snaps at me with enough venom to send a lethal dose of poison through my veins, “don’t you go through that trust fund. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”_

_I look down toward the floor as anger starts to bubble up in my belly like hot lava. I can feel it so much that I’m starting to sweat. My face is red from all the blood rushing to my head, I bet, and I don’t want her seeing it. I don’t want her knowing that she’s fucking with me. It would give her too much satisfaction._

_“Look, I know I might not be what you wanted for Maisie, but I really like her, and I’ll make sure she’s taken care of either way.”_

_“David is really safe, Mom. You can trust him. He takes really good care of me.”_

_“Well, I’ll give it a pass, but I can’t speak for your father. Daddy was very firm about you pairing up with, well, you know...someone a little more...educated.”_

_Now I can’t help but show her how pissed off I am, because that remark was the absolute last fucking straw. When I open my mouth to start telling her off and then maybe storm out of here as a result, who should enter the room but my father, Henry Wells? Speak of the fucking devil. I had hoped we might make it through this without him making an appearance. It isn’t his holiday, anyway. That’s what he used to say when he went away on ‘business’ trips during Hanukkah._

_“Lynette, bring us some appetizers,” he barks straight at her, and she scurries away before he can say another word. (Dad was always mean to Lynette - he is a vocal racist.) She had been waiting in the corner of the room, probably watching out for me, or just trying to make sure the situation wasn’t going to blow up...which it would have if Henry hadn’t walked in. “Welcome home, Maisie,” he says as he plops down about a foot away from my mother and crosses his ankle over his knee. He’s wearing a grey suit with a starched white shirt underneath. The buttons on his suit jacket are gold, and he’s wearing the kind of black loafers that have the tassels hanging off the top. His silver hair is parted right in the middle. In the past three years it seems his hair has gone totally silver, and it makes me wonder if I’ll be lucky enough to have that kind of silver hair when I’m older. Henry also scans David and his appearance with contempt, clearly displeased and unimpressed with the guy with the long hair and the thick beard sitting next to me. Clearly wishing for something different. Clearly thinking that if I were thinner I would’ve attracted someone ‘better’. Well, I’ll show them when David is famous and rolling in money. And besides, even if we were poor...I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t care because I think I might be falling in love with him, and that’s what matters._

_“So…”, he starts with an iciness to his voice that makes me want to jump across the room and throttle him until he’s twitching on the floor. “What’s your name, son?”_

_“I’m David,” he says for the third time today, clearly exhausted by all the introductions, and I don’t blame him._

_“Nice to meet you, David.”_

_“He’s a musician,” my mother pipes up. “In a band.”_

_The word ‘band’ drips from her mouth like she’s vomiting it up, or like it’s something that tastes rancid. Spoiled milk, or old gin, or something._

_“Oh.”_

_That’s all my father can manage as he stares at me. His eyes bore a hole through me, and I can see a clear disappointment in his eyes. So many silent moments pass by where my father is staring down at his twiddling thumbs, disappointed, and my mother taps her foot from her spot on the couch...also disappointed. The moments hang in there with a tension so thick you could cut it with a knife, and then Mom breaks it, but her question is exactly what I had wanted to avoid._

_“So, you lived with another boy in England?”_

_“Yeah…” I say, not ready to admit that it was actually two._

_“What was his name?”_

_“Syd,” I offer reluctantly as my voice shakes. I don’t want to talk about this anymore, because even saying his name threatens to bring on a panic attack when I’m already so frazzled. “Syd Barrett.”_

_“Wait,” Henry interjects. “The Cambridge Barretts?”_

_“Yeah, I guess,” I say. “I only ever met his sister.”  
“Winston and his wife had a son and a daughter. I think it might be the same family. The son’s name was Roger, though, if I remember correctly, so maybe not,” Mom says in that way that she has when she’s gossipping about other people: that matter-of-fact voice, like she’s on a first name basis with everyone._

_I wish I could have avoided that information, or that I’d never mentioned Syd’s name at all. He's the last thing that I wanted to think about right now, given how stressful the situation already is, but now I find out my family knew him? That’s information I’ll take to my grave. I don’t ever even want to think about it again after we walk out of this house and back to the car. I don’t ever want to think about Syd again at all, but so far that’s a losing battle. Still, now isn’t the time. Now isn’t the time. Now isn’t the time. I keep repeating that mantra (David taught me about mantras, we usually use them when I have nightmares) over and over to myself in my head to stave this off before I have to run to the bathroom and melt down._

_David squeezes my waist as I start to shake, and I feel sweat dripping down my face, but I steel myself. I set my lips in a straight line, and somehow..maybe it’s just not wanting my mother to see me vulnerable...I swallow all of the panic that’s building up in my body like a geyser that’s due to burst at any minute. I lean my head on David’s shoulder, and when I raise it again I look straight into Mom’s eyes. I can see that she can tell I don’t want to talk about this, but it seems like she just doesn’t care, or judging by the smirk that’s creeping across her fat face...that she is delighting in making me visibly uncomfortable and unsettled._

_“I did some business with Winston Barrett in England. Your uncle set me up with him. Had quite a bit of money, that family. Sad that it didn’t work out,” he muses with a sour indignity._

_I look over at David, horrified and unsure what to say. If only Henry knew, but then again...if he knew, would it even matter?_

_“Well, I’m not sad,” he says, rescuing me from having to say anything. His voice is defiant and certain, and I know he’s not going to mention anything about what Syd did, but I can tell that it’s still fresh in his mind, and that the remark pissed him off for multiple reasons._

_“Me either,”I add meekly, even though somewhere deep inside me I know that’s not the complete truth. Most of me knows it should never have worked out with Syd, but there’s a tiny, tiny part of me that still loves him. Most days, I can ignore that...but this is making the wounds feel fresh._

_“We stayed in England for a few months when you were very young, you know, and we had your second birthday party at Eugenia’s house. Actually…” - it’s like a lightning bulb switched on in her head - “Dear, don’t we have photos of that party?”_

_“I don’t know,” my father mumbles. I notice him looking David up and down again, and now that David isn’t paying attention I see the full force of all the disgust in his eyes. And then he meets my gaze, and he looks at me with that same disgust. He’s angry at me for not ‘doing better’, and it’s glaringly obvious, because he’s looking at both me and David (but especially David) like we’re shit on the bottom of his shoe._

_“Lynette!,” my mom yells, hoping she’s nearby, and Lynette promptly reenters the room a few minutes later. We always joked about her magic hearing, but I realized at a young age that if Lynette didn’t have her magic hearing my mother would make her life a living hell. That ‘magic hearing’ was an act of self preservation._

_“Yes, Miss Maxine?,” she asks in the fake pleasant voice that she uses with my mother. Seriously, you should hear her talk about Mom when she isn’t around. That’s always a riot._

_“Do you remember where Maisie’s birthday photo albums are?”_

_“Yes, ma’am. I’ve kept ‘em in the same place for years now. Which one do you want?”_

_“Her second birthday, please. From when we took her to England.”_

_“I’ll be right back with it, then.”_

_The next few minutes where we’re waiting for Lynette pass so slowly that it feels like someone, maybe God (if that actually exists), slowed them down on purpose, but really it’s just all the dread that’s radiating off of both David and I combined with my father’s disgust at both of us, and topped off with my mother’s sadism that’s coming off of her like frigid air._

_“So, David. Tell me about your family,” she says, breaking the stupid silence once and for all._

_“Well, it’s just me, my father, my brother and my little sister now. My mother died a few years ago.”_

_“I see. I’m sorry to hear that. What did she die of, if I may ask?”_

_“She caught a bad case of pneumonia,” he says softly. I’ve never asked him much about his mother, and he’s never offered any information. It seems like it’s very difficult to talk about._

_“That’s awful. Are you the oldest?”_

_“Yes, ma’am,” he replies._

_“And what does your father do?”_

_“He’s an accountant.”_

_“Interesting. So your father’s an accountant, but you didn’t want to follow in his footsteps?”_

_“I’m rather bad at maths, I’m afraid,” he says with a laugh. “Music is the love of my life. My father’s got a large enough nest egg for me if I need it that I have never had to worry about money. I’m in this for the love of it, not the money,” he says with a smile, and I turn to look at him, marveling at the way his eyes shine when he talks about playing music._

_“Yes, well, that’s all fine and sounds like it would be a good idea on paper, and I’m happy you’re happy, David, but my concern about that is…”_

_That’s my father interrupting with a coldness in his voice that chills me to the bone all the way over here, but he’s then interrupted by Lynette coming back into the room holding a large powder blue fabric photo album with a lace border. In the center is a picture of me on what I guess was my second birthday, all tiny and smiley with a white bow in my hair (a little puff of brown ringlets) and wearing a velvet dress. (Color photography was available by then, but it was really expensive. So of course, my mom had to have it). Mom probably still loved me then._

_“Thank you Lynette, dear,” Mom says, and takes the album from her._

_Lynette stands waiting at attention until my mother shoos her away with a wave of her hand, and then she starts to leaf through the pages. She remarks on almost every page, shouting out with palpable glee how she remembers every moment of that party, and who that person is, and who they married, and it seems like it goes on for way too long before she says:_

_“Oh, here it is! Look there, Maisie. That’s their son Roger holding you.”_

_My heart starts racing all over again. It’s pounding so hard that if it bursts through my chest and bounces off the walls I wouldn’t be surprised at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if I melted onto the floor in a puddle of tears, either. I should tell her I don’t want to see it. I should tell her he broke my heart and I don’t want to look at him. It’s not really a lie, anyway. He did break my heart._

_But I know what would happen if I told her, I think as I prepare myself to look at the picture, and she’s looking at me like I have three heads since I haven’t yet. If I told her that he broke my heart, she’d just say ‘oh, there’s no harm in looking!’ and force me to look at it anyway. So I take the photo album from her, my hand shaking with a mad fury, and I hold it in my hands. I stare up at the ceiling for another minute. I’m not ready. Then I look down, and let my eyes roam over the picture. David follows suit._

_And there it is. It’s exactly as she described it. There’s Syd; he’s probably around four years old if I was two in that picture. He’s got one of those haircuts that was common for boys of the time, shaved on the sides and a little bit fuller on top, parted on the side. He’s a little chubby, and he’s wearing black overalls and a white cotton button up shirt, and he’s got his arms wrapped around me. He’s smiling his goofy, sparkling smile at me, and I’m reflecting it right back at him. I have my arms wrapped around his chubby little shoulders. We look like the kind of little kids that parents would look at and say ‘oh, look, they’re going to get married someday! It’s true love!”, and I can’t even accurately describe the feeling that comes over me, but I guess for your benefit I’ll try._

_The inside of my body is frozen solid. I want to crawl into a sauna and never come out. Every single organ in my body is constrained in a coffin of ice, unable to function. I can’t breathe, my heart feels like it won’t pump, and I certainly can’t think of any thoughts except for this picture, and Syd holding me, and the two of us looking at one another … even at two and four years old … like the world lives in the other’s eyes. If I had come here with Syd, if he had never broken and done that thing to me...and we had seen this, we would have taken it as a sign that we were meant to be together. But now, with everything that happened, it only terrifies me._

_“This is...this is…”_

_I can’t even finish my sentence. I look into Mom’s piercing, dark brown eyes, and I can see behind them that somewhere inside her she knows this is making me suffer (how could she not? I’m shaking), but she doesn’t care. In fact, with the smile that crosses her face when our eyes connect, I suspect she might even be taking some joy in it._

_“Isn’t it just darling? We had to take that picture. It was too lovely a moment not to capture it. What a lovely coincidence, don’t you think, Henry?”_

_“Sure,” he says in a sour tone, his eyes still focused on David from the other side of the couch._

_It’s almost time to light the menorah. The sun will go down soon. And then it’ll be dinnertime, and that will bring just more awkward conversation. For now, I think the best thing that David and I can do is leave and spend the free time with Lynette. That’s who I was excited for him to meet, anyway. We excuse ourselves after sharing a look, and walk down the hall to find her._


	82. Maisie - Cambridge, July 2006 - Syd and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Syd and Maisie meet their baby niece for the first time.

Today’s the day that Jill and Ian are finally bringing Emily over to meet Syd and I, and we’ve been waiting with giddy anticipation for it since she was born. She’s a few weeks old, but it took a little bit for Syd to feel up to seeing anyone. Now that he’s up to it he’s feeling really excited, and even with all the pain in his face I’m enjoying watching the way it lights up when he talks about her. He’s been going on about the baby and how excited he is all morning, and I’m excited too, but I’m mostly just glad he’s awake and talking, if I’m honest. 

We had to bring the hospital bed into the house the other day. Ian did come by without Jill and the baby to help me bring it in and set it up. The entire time that we were doing that, Syd was lying on the couch and passed out. He couldn’t even wake up to see his nephew, but Ian didn’t mind, and I certainly didn’t say anything about it. Ever since we brought it in, Syd hasn’t gotten up to leave it. He’s stayed there prone for a few days now, and yesterday he started to refuse food and water

I know it’s coming, and soon. 

I know it’s closer than it ever has been, and I’m trying so hard to hold it together, but I stepped away before into the bathroom to shed a few tears, admittedly. In front of him I’m the picture of strength and courage, but in private I’m falling apart.

I wanted to sleep in his chair now, and I moved it right next to the hospital bed, but he asks me to climb in with him every night since the bed came. He’s so thin now that I can actually manage to fit in there next to him, so I hold him every night and I stroke his head and I kiss him. I’m trying to take every moment that I possibly can to touch him and to stare at him, because I know that likely in a matter of days I won’t be able to touch him or to kiss him or to stroke what’s left of his hair ever again. In a matter of days, Syd will be gone. He’ll really be gone, and I’ll...I guess I’ll go back to America after the memorial service and go on with my life without him. I don’t know how I’ll get through it, but Gloria and Alice and Helen will help me. They always do. 

For now, though, I’m in the dining room tidying up a little to prepare for everyone to come. I asked Ian if I should invite Rosemary, and he asked me not to. It seems like everyone these days is becoming wise to what Rosemary is, including her own son, and doesn’t want her around. It does pain me in a way, because she has given so much of her life to caring for Syd, but if he doesn’t want her around I’m not gonna argue...because I don’t want her around either. And if her own son doesn’t want her around, well, I’m definitely not arguing with that. He didn’t say why he wanted her to stay home, though, but I elected not to inquire. I don’t need Syd’s last days to be full of family drama that he never asked to be involved in.

I can hear my name being called from the living room where Syd’s bed is, and his voice is low...barely above a whisper. Even talking is becoming very difficult for him, so I have to keep my ears very open when I’m nott in the room with him. I don’t want to miss a thing. I don’t want him to yell out to me, in pain, and me not to hear it. So every time I’m out of the living room I’m listening like a bat for him to call. I rush to his side and place my hand on his withered cheek as I stare into his tearing, glassy eyes. They look nothing like the bright, clear, jubilant eyes of the Syd that I came here and fell in love with all over again. They look nothing like the eyes of the sweet boy that stole my heart when I was just 19 years old, either. In fact, it almost seems like they’re looking past me instead of at me, but I know where his eyes are. I can tell.

“What is it baby?,” I ask him gently as I run my thumb over the papery thin skin of his cheek. 

“I need to tell you something before I can’t talk anymore,” he says as a tear rolls down his face. 

“You can tell me anything,” I whisper as I crouch down next to the cold steel that’s holding up the hospital bed. His hand, shaky and weak, reaches for my face and I shut my eyes as I feel his fingertips grazing against my cheek. I place my hand on top of his, the small, fragile hand of my loving husband, and then I turn and kiss his palm. 

“Open your eyes,” he coaxes me, his voice weak and barely functioning. I listen to his request and shoot my eyes open, and I’m confronted with the smallest smile he was able to muster, which is more than enough for me. I’m just happy to see him smiling. “Maisie…”, he continues, “the most amazing thing I have ever done with my life was falling in love with you, and there has not been one single second in all of these years where I have ever felt any differently. The only thing I want…” his voice falters, and he swallows, holding back more tears, “is for you to be happy. So please, Maisie...please, find David.” 

Unable to reply, and unsure as to why, I take his hand in mine and then after a minute I pull up the chair next to his bed. We stare at one another for a few minutes, with me trying desperately to find my words, until a gentle knock comes at the door. That’s the perfect opportunity for me to sit on what he said and figure out what would be the right thing to say in response. It just doesn’t feel right to even think of David anymore. 

“I’ll get the door, baby. You just relax.” 

Syd smiles at me. He knows I’m avoiding what he said. He probably knows that I just don’t feel right about thinking about David right now. In fact, that might be exactly why he said it. 

“I can’t do much else,” he jokes, and he reaches for my hand one more time when I stand up before I walk toward the door. “Kiss me,” he pleads, and I don’t even wait until he’s finished the second word before I grab his face and push my lips against his, ignoring how dry they are, and choosing instead to only focus on the glorious, lovely feeling of kissing my husband. I’m hungry for every kiss he can find it in himself to give me, and I’ll give him more than my fair share once we’re alone again. 

I open up the front door and greet Ian and Jill, and the beautiful, sleeping infant in the carrier that Ian’s holding. She’s wearing a pink onesie, terry cloth with lace around the collar and a yellow duckling sitting patiently on the chest. She looks so peaceful sleeping in there, but it looks like she’s getting too big for the carrier she’s got. She’s got long legs like her mother, and a black mop of hair just like her uncle used to have. Without even thinking about it I squeal with glee and pull Jill into my arms, not stopping to think for a second that she might not want hugs right now. Usually, I’d be mindful of that, but this is the first baby I’ve met in a very, very long time, and she’s my niece! 

“Oh my god, guys, she’s gorgeous!,” I exclaim as I pull away from Jill and focus all my attention on Emily sleeping in her carrier. “Come in.”

“Is Uncle awake?,” Ian asks, and I can hear a little worry in his voice, because last time he came here we couldn’t wake Syd for anything. 

“Yes, he’s awake. He’s very excited. He’s been looking forward to meeting Emily.” 

“Hopefully she wakes up,” Jill says with a smile, and she grabs my hand and squeezes it. “I’m so happy to see you looking so thrilled to meet her. My mother in law just doesn’t seem as happy, and I guess I was hoping she could have a doting, loving grandmother. Should’ve known better, I guess.”

“Don’t you worry, I’ll do that enough for both me and Rosemary,” I whisper to her as we approach the living room, and I give her hand another squeeze. 

Ian recoils when he enters the living room. His body goes rigid and he grimaces as the too sanitary smell of all the medical equipment hits his nose, and I watch his eyes start to fill with tears when he looks at his uncle lying helpless in a hospital bed hooked up to oxygen and a heart monitor with an IV stuck in his hand (I’ve gotten very good at changing them...the visiting nurse joked that she might not need to come anymore soon, but I didn’t laugh, because I took that to mean something very different from what she meant). Cautiously, he approaches the bed while Jill and I look on, but before he sits down in the chair he brings the carrier back and gives it to Jill, who takes it, sets it down, and lifts little Emily out of it to hold her in her arms. 

“Uncle…” Ian starts, but he never finishes his sentence. Syd reaches for his hand and squeezes it, a small, bright smile playing on his face as he stares back at his nephew, who is clearly choking back tears. 

“Don’t cry, Ian,” Syd says, “It’s okay. I’m not afraid. I’m just a little sad to leave you all behind is all, but you’ll see me again. It’s a happy day, anyway. We’re here to be happy, not to be sad. It’s all about Little Miss Emily today. Where is she?,” he asks. The inflection in his voice goes up when he asks, like it immediately lightened his mood. “She’s the first baby I’ve ever met,” he admits, which doesn’t surprise me, actually.

“Emily’s right here,” Jill says, and she smiles as she approaches the bed. I follow, waiting with anticipation to see how he reacts when he sees her for the first time, because nothing makes me happier than watching Syd be happy about things in these ever darker and darker days. 

When Syd lays eyes on Emily his eyes go wide, and a joyful smile spreads across his face...the biggest that he’s smiled today. His eyes light up he reaches for her without a moment’s hesitation, like he just reacted without thinking. 

“She’s so pretty,” he muses as Jill lays her in his arms, and then helps him to support her head. “Oh, she’s just perfect. Ian, if you don’t mind, would you let Maisie have the chair? I want her to sit here with me and hold Emily, too.” 

Ian offers me his seat and smiles at me, and I return his smile and sit down next to Syd and Emily. Syd looks at me, still with that big, bright smile on his thin, wrinkled, sallow face...and it lights my heart on fire to see some semblance of who I know he still is inside there. Then he looks back at Emily, and I see so much love in his eyes that I reach out and stroke his arm, watching him watch her so intently that I feel lost inside the moment. Then she opens her eyes, wide awake, and I think for a second both Syd and I expect her to cry for her parents, but she just stares right back into Syd’s eyes. If she were a little older I’m sure she’d smile. She looks absolutely smitten with him as it is, and I am more than willing to share the title of ‘biggest fan’ with my beautiful niece.

Syd, lost in the moment too, strokes her soft mess of black hair and opens his mouth. When he starts singing everyone in the room looks at one another in shock. Syd hasn’t sung a song since the mid 70s, from what I’ve been told, and he certainly hasn’t since I’ve been here. He has always insisted that music was too much of a trigger for him, but looking at Emily makes him want to sing. 

“Emily tries, but misunderstands...she’s often inclined to borrow somebody’s dreams till tomorrow. There is no other day...let’s try it another way...you’ll lose your mind in play. Free games for May...see Emily play…” 

His voice cracks as he sings...maybe because his condition makes singing hard, or maybe because he hasn’t sung in so long...or maybe both. Even talking very much is difficult for him these days. But listening to him go on singing the song so lovingly for the first time in decades in awe I find myself compelled to take a picture of the two of them, and so I pull out my phone (which is already very full of pictures of Syd as it is, I’m going to have to transfer them onto my computer … when I have to go back to Maine) and snap a picture of Syd singing to Emily, still with that joyous, luminous grin on his face. When he’s done singing he looks over at me and motions for me to show him the picture, one hand still gently stroking Emily’s hair. I show it to him, and he squeals with delight, and I am overtaken with this feeling of love that I can’t even begin to describe, so I lean over and I kiss him. This time it’s Jill who snaps a picture..a beautiful picture of the three of us. 

“Imagine if we could have had a beautiful baby just like this, Maisie. You would have been such a wonderful mother. And I would have been so happy to be a Daddy.” 

I smile at him, but I don’t reply just yet, because I don’t think I would have been a wonderful mother. Part of me thinks it would have been worth it for Syd to be a father if he had been well, but I don’t think I’m well-equipped. I think I’m far too self-centered, but who knows. 

“I would have loved to have a baby with you,” I murmur at him with a loving smile and a full heart. “You would have been an amazing Daddy. I can tell just by watching you with Emily.”

“Can Maisie hold her?,” he asks Jill. “I just want to see her holding a baby. It would make me so happy,” he says with a pleading tone in his voice, like he’s trying to convince her, but Jill just shakes her head and laughs. 

“Of course Maisie can hold her,” she says with all the warmth and excitement of a new mother with no baby blues, and Syd passes Emily to me. I take her in my arms: this innocent, perfect little baby with her fuzzy pink onesie and her pretty black hair, her floppy, chubby limbs and her tiny little button nose. I make sure her head is protected in my palm and I squeeze her just a little bit, enjoying her warmth and her new baby smell. She stares back at me too, just like she stared at Syd, and I start cooing at her and baby talking to her like I’ve never done with another baby before. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love this fast with another baby...but then again, I’ve never really had any babies in my family before, and all of my friends have adult children or no children at all. 

“Look at her, Syd. How perfect is she?,” I ask, hypnotized by how beautiful she is.

“She’s the most perfect baby ever,” he says with a smile, and then he looks me right in the eyes, a playful smile on his face. “I think I’d like to try to walk with the two of you in the garden and show Emily all the flowers,” he says with a little mischief in his voice. 

“Are you up for it?,” I ask, and even I can hear the worry in my voice, so I know that he can too. “I don’t want you to stress yourself too much.” 

“Will you help me walk?,” he asks, his voice full of hope. Still holding Emily close to me I stretch a hand out and run my hand over his head, petting him. 

“If we can put Emily in her carrier so I can carry her with my other arm then yes, of course I’ll help you walk. But if it gets too hard on you, then we need to come back inside or at least sit in the garden instead of walk.” 

“Deal,” Syd says, beaming so wide that I laugh thinking of his smile stretching out his face, and then I hand Emily back to Jill to help Syd get out of bed. 

This is the first time he’s gotten out of bed for anything but the bathroom in days, and the only reason he’s getting out of the bed for the bathroom is because he insisted, so he’s very wobbly and unsteady when his feet hit the floor. I hold him up so he doesn’t fall, because I suspect without my help he might, and I watch as Jill places her daughter back in her carrier. 

“She is such a calm baby,” I point out, thinking of all the screaming babies I’ve been confronted with on airplanes. 

“She really doesn’t cry much at all. We’re very lucky.”

“That’s not the only reason you’re lucky,” Syd pipes up from beside me, grasping at my waist. “She’s the best baby ever in every single way. I can’t wait to show her the flowers.” 

Jill hands the baby carrier to me, and both she and Ian agree they’d like to stay inside and take some time to breathe, and Syd and I are happy to take Emily by ourselves, so we walk out the back door and into Syd’s beautiful, lively garden full of blooming flowers of all different colors and styles that I had brought in for the summer for him to look at. He told me he doesn’t keep a garden here anymore, and I didn’t think that made any sense, but I knew if I asked him to plant a bunch of flowers they wouldn’t show by summer. So I ordered the flowers and we hired a gardener to plant them all when they were delivered, and now Syd and I always have flowers to look at. And now there are some to show Emily, too.

We walk through the garden a bit, me holding on to both Syd and the baby, until he expresses that he feels dissatisfied because he can’t take her out and walk on his own, and then we sit on the bench I ordered for him to paint back in April so we could sit out there together. It’s a very basic garden bench with no frills, just like he likes things, and the back is painted blue like the sky with a beautiful yellow and black butterfly set against it. On the other side of the back is another yellow and black butterfly landing on some red flowers, and on the seat he’s painted some daisies and black eyed susans against the brown wood. We have enjoyed sitting on and studying this bench for a few months now, but in the past few weeks, even as the weather has gotten warmer and the flowers have grown into full bloom, we have come out here to sit together less and less often. 

“Can I hold her again?,” he asks, and I take her out of the carrier and hand her to him, looking on at the two of them in awe. He really would have made a wonderful father. “Do you see those, Emily? Those are daisies, and those are black eyed susans, and those are carnations and irises and lilacs. I really like the purple ones the best, what do you think? I wonder what your favorite color will be. And that blank spot right there is where Aunt Maisie and I planted our orange daylilies together. Maybe whoever lives here next will let you come back and see them someday when they’re grown.”

He continues for quite awhile, holding her up and showing her all the different flowers: explaining what they are, what color they are, and what each different kind of flower symbolizes, but I’m so lost in admiring him and the way that he handles our niece with so much gentleness, love, and understanding...so much tenderness and hope...that I can’t keep focus on what he’s saying. I pull out my phone one more time and snap one more picture of the two of them, and I look at it when I’m done to see if I need to retake it. I don’t. It is a perfect photo, with the sun hitting the two of them in just the right way so as to make them look illuminated, and it’s so appropriate for Syd to look illuminated...because he is an angel. 

And it’s in the next few minutes that Jill and Ian step outside to take what I fear may be the last picture of Syd and I together. We have Emily sitting on both of our legs in between us, and we each have a hand on her shoulders and an arm around one another. At the last minute before Jill snaps her photo I turn to look at Syd, and he stares back at me, and that’s when I see the light of love and joy in his eyes that I got so used to seeing every single day that I’ve been here, the one that I couldn’t find before: that beautiful, sacred, luminous and boyish look of puppy love that secretly, even though I am happy to have lived the life I lived without it, I wish I could have been greeted with every morning of my life since 1967.


	83. David - Carlisle Massachusetts, 1969 - Maisie's Parents'House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After an especially tense encounter with Maisie's jaded, skeptical and ill mannered father, David is relieved to know that she grew up with at least one person in her corner.

_I almost wish I hadn’t agreed to do this.  
It isn’t that I think it was the wrong time to meet Maisie’s parents, or that I’m having second thoughts about her. It isn’t that at all, in fact; this meeting only cements how I feel about her and what I want with her, because the fact that she came out of this family as kind-hearted and good humoured of a person as she is speaks very highly of her and her resilience and the goodness of her heart. And I like, respect, and admire that very much. What I don’t like at all is her parents and the way they treat her. _

_Did you see the way her cunt mother grabbed her stomach like that before she even asked her how she’s doing, and inferred that she still wasn’t good enough because she had it? In fact, did she even ask Maisie how she’s doing at all? It was so tense and so absurd in that room with them that I don't even remember. I’ve never seen a family treat one another that way. I’ve never seen such coldness in any one family before. I’ve certainly heard of it...god knows the horror stories I’ve heard about Roger’s mother in particular, and the thing I’ve heard about Syd’s mother as well, but I never had the privilege of being stuck in a room with them and watching it happen._

_At least when we went downstairs into the slaves’ quarters or whatever the hell they’ve got going on down there where they stow all the servants away like trash it was bearable. In fact, it wasn’t just bearable...I found Lynette to be such a lovely woman that I walked away no longer finding it a mystery how Maisie ended up to be so lovely herself. The way she fussed over Maisie, and fed her extra dinner (her mother instructed Lynette to give her the smallest of portions...right in front of Maisie’s face, as if there was no problem with it, while she herself made Lynette pile so much food on her plate that it took her perhaps five minutes before she told her to stop, and insisted that I have the exact same amount of food) and snuck us extra desserts...the way she made sure to ask if Maisie is eating and sleeping enough at home, and how she complimented the way she’s kept up with her hair...among everything else, of course. She talked my ear off with absolutely nothing less than the utmost enthusiasm and love about Maisie’s love of politics and how much she loves to read...the way she told stories about Maisie watching presidential debates and staying up all night on election night just to see who won, and proudly wearing her Kennedy pin to school...I mean, it just made me like Maisie all that much more. And it warmed my heart to know that she had at least one person when she was a child who loved her, because her parents clearly do not love her._

_And that is no more apparent than it has been tonight than it is right now sitting in her father’s study with him. He has not said one nice word about her since he shut the door._

_I could tell he was into men a mile away, by the way. He has that hapless, ineffectual, dour look of a man who’s terrified of himself. It’s the one Roger used to get when he was fooling around with Syd, too. He has no sense of style. He looks like The Kinks wrote “A Well Respected Man” about him specifically with that plain, boring suit and those wire rimmed glasses and that haircut that every man of his age is just expected to have. He’s even got a boring tie on. Like he couldn’t even take a second to try and make himself stand out at all. And I don’t think I’d be taking the piss out of his appearance so much if he weren’t so critical of his daughter. Same with her mother, in fact, but I have far too much respect for women to minimize them to their appearances, since so many people tend to do that anyway. It’s very unoriginal. I could go on forever about what a critical, superficial cow she is, though._

_Henry Wells sits across from me on his clover green living chair with the stupid golden circles on the front of its arm rests. He crosses his long, thin leg over his other long, thin leg, and he rests a willowy arm on an arm rest while his eyes roam over me like he’s looking at a disgusting insect, or a rat, or something. The entire time I’ve had to be confronted with him it has felt like he’s thinking of me as nothing more than an insect, and I’m just waiting now to be proven right._

_“Brandy?,” he asks me in a disinterested, monotone voice as he stands up and wanders toward his light brown wooden bar with a glossy finish that likely hides all its alcohol and bottles in cubbies on the side facing away from the chairs. It doesn’t seem like he really cares whether or not I have one, but rather that he’s just getting up to get one for himself and doesn’t think that he should be so impolite as not to offer._

_“I’d like that. May I smoke?,” I ask._

_“Go right ahead. I smoke enough in here for the two of us.”_

_“Do you want one?,” I ask, shaking my pack of cigarettes._

_“I’ll smoke one of my Cubans. Don’t worry about it.”_

_I turn my back on him and light my cigarette, staring at his wall of books for a minute before he returns and sits back down in his chair, and crosses his legs again. He hands me my drink, and as soon as I take it from him he takes a long swig of his own, sucking the golden brown brandy down his throat in one go. Just like Roger._

_“This is good,” I say, taking a considerably smaller sip of my own brandy than he took of his. When I drink, I party, and this is certainly not any occasion to party._

_“It certainly is. It’s a cognac, but I can’t be bothered to go back and check the brand name on it. I bought it in France for quite a hefty sum, and only save it for special occasions. Hanukkah I couldn’t give a damn less about, but my daughter finally finding a man...that’s the most special of occasions.”_

_The words roll off his tongue so sharply I could swear it was a knife coming out of his mouth and not a tongue at all. They even hurt me, and I’m not the one he’s insulting. I clear my throat to signal my discomfort and displeasure, and take a long drag off my cigarette while I cross my legs and stare at the grandfather clock next to one of the walls ticking away like it’s trying on purpose to add to all the tension that’s growing thicker by the second. I swallow a crumb of rage that I can feel rising from my stomach, and with another long drag I am able to calm myself before I storm out._

_“Why’s that an occasion?,” I ask, genuinely curious to see what bullshit he can pull out of his arse._

_“Well, look at her,” he replies, his eyes on the ceiling like it’s just so obvious that I’m an idiot for even asking him. “Do you need me to spell it out for you?”_

_“I suppose I’d like you to, because I don’t see anything wrong with Maisie when I look at her. In fact, I rather love looking at her.”_

_“You know, son, if you want some money just ask me and I’ll pay you to leave her alone and stop using her for hers,” he says point-blank._

_“I’m…” I take another drag before I dare to finish my sentence, fearing my tone would be a whole lot less than diplomatic if I don’t do it, because I feel so enraged that my temples are starting to throb. “I’m not using Maisie.”_

_“Oh, you’re not? What other reason would a good looking young man like yourself with very little money of your own who’s gambling his future on rock music have for chasing after my chunky, plain daughter?_

_“Mr. Wells, with all due respect…” I start, weighing my words before I say them, and throwing my cigarette into the ashtray he’s set next to the small two-seater sofa I’m sitting on. I massage my temples to stave off this headache I’m getting from the adrenaline pumping through my body like electricity, all from restraining myself from beating the living piss out of him. “I don’t care if I’m living in a cardboard box. I’m not that type of man, looking for money. And as far as gambling my future on rock music, well, I’m touring in America, as Maisie and I both told you. We’re going to California next, and we’ve just been to New York for the second time. I’m working on my fourth studio album with my band, and it’s actually their fifth, as they had someone else fronting the band before he got kicked out and Roger, our bassist, took over and asked me to take his place on guitar. I’m not badly off at all. If I wanted money, sir, I’d make it myself, and I make more than enough doing this. And I don’t know at all what you’re talking about: ‘your chunky, plain daughter’, or what would a man like me want with her? I’ve never heard a man talk that way about his own daughter before, and quite frankly I’m astounded and having a hard time not throwing the rest of this unnecessarily expensive liquor in your face. For your information I can name two other men that have been and still are very taken with your daughter that you speak so ill of. She chose me, not the other way around, trust me. I think she’s beautiful, and I don’t think she’s chunky at all, and you’d do well, I dare say, to try and rethink what you say and think about your own child.”_

_I want to add in ‘Perhaps if you liked women at all you’d understand what men see in a woman like that’, but I’m not to know that he’s gay, so out of respect for Maisie I don’t say it._

_His eyes narrow, and he’s squinting like he can’t see. It seems like he’s trying to peer inside my brain to find the truth, like he’s scanning all the nooks and crannies of my mind that I don’t want to show anybody, but I don’t care about laying everything bare in front of this old, sad tosser._

_“It’s pretty cute that you think you have some kind of a future doing this, and that you’re so committed to the illusion you’re selling yourself that you’re getting aggressive with me, but I don’t buy it for a second, kid, and you can put a lid on it and watch the way you speak to me in my house. Maybe I’ll buy all this when you put a ring on her finger, but I don’t buy it now. We’ve always known Maisie wasn’t gonna do well when it came to finding a husband because she has never been a great beauty, that’s for sure, and she’s never been the best at socialising with women or charming men, but I thought she might be able to do better than some hippie longhair throwing his future away on a fucking guitar. Why aren’t you running around with actresses and models and groupies, anyway? Isn’t that what you people are supposed to do? What do you want with some fat Jewish girl from some rich little nothing town in Massachusetts if it isn’t the money? Do you know how much money she has in her trust fund? Maisie never has to work. She’s the perfect target for a guy like you, and deep down she probably knows it.”_

_I stand up and my body instinctively pushes me to advance on him, to get in his space, and maybe even start throwing punches, but by some miracle I’m able to stop myself. I don’t sit back down, though, because I’m not staying in this room with him for another second. We must have only been in here for about 20 minutes before I couldn’t stand it anymore. Those last few words were the last straw, and it isn’t even what he said about me. I’ve heard the bit about throwing my future away on music too many times now for it to mean anything. Hell, even my father sat me down to talk to me about that when I joined Pink Floyd; he pulled the concerned dad bit, which I appreciated, because he really does try especially since Mum died, and he asked me if I was really sure that a band as a full time job was worth taking a chance on. So I’m immune to that kind of talk. No, what I don’t like is the way this man thinks so little of his own daughter. His own offspring. His little girl. The precious little baby girl that came out of his wife, that he and his wife made together. I don’t like that, especially when she’s my girl._

_The room stinks of old, musty, unmaintained books, alcohol and cigars. It’s the most drab room I’ve seen in the place with light brown linen curtains hung on cheap looking gold rods and the floor is just a bare light brown wood, the same as the mini bar he got our brandy from. He’s got all sorts of pretentious art, pictures of other men mostly, hanging around on the wood paneled walls and there’s a black chain link chandelier hanging from the ceiling, flooding the room with a really weird amber light that makes the whole atmosphere all that much more uncomfortable and oppressive. The whole mess is just like Henry’s entire existence as a man too afraid of himself to get out of his sham of a marriage and go for what he wants in life. As a result he takes out his self-hatred on his innocent daughter, and probably on his wife. And his wife, in turn, also takes her self-hatred and her feelings of failure out on her daughter who she sees far too much of herself, and what she never allowed herself to be, in._

_“I love your daughter. I’m in love with her, and I haven’t stopped thinking of her since the day I met her. That’s it. That’s the end of it. If you don’t like that then, I beg your pardon, but it’s not going to drive me off, and we’ll be on an entirely different continent, so you don’t need to worry for a second about us and what we’re doing. Clearly, neither of you have anyway, seeing as you couldn’t be arsed to even really look for her when she up and disappeared out of your sister’s house, and let her run off to god knows where. If that were my little girl I’d spare no expense, especially if I’ve got what you’ve got in the bank, all that money you like to brag about and use as an excuse to look down on me for not having. I’d leave absolutely no stone unturned to find my daughter if I had one and she ran away, and I wouldn’t give up until I found her, even if years passed just like they did without you or your wife bothering to do anything about it. Do you know what happened to Maisie after she ran away from your sister? I’ll bet you don’t, because she knows neither you nor Mrs. Wells care enough to listen and hear how horrible it was without judgment, but trust me when I tell you that it was horrific, what she went through with the last boy she was with before me. I’ve spent the past months caring for her, making sure she’s well, making sure she remembers to eat, making sure she can go back to sleep at night after she has these nightmares that just...zap her of all her bloody energy, Mr. Wells, and send her into panic attacks. Do you know how many panic attacks I’ve calmed? Do you know how many times I’ve talked your daughter off a metaphorical ledge? You don’t. Not just because you haven’t been told, but because I doubt you’d ever do that for your own daughter if she did tell you. I doubt you ever did do it for her when she needed you when she was a child, either. Do you know what her favourite colour is, even? Do you know what she likes to talk about, or that she loves to cook, or that she’s as avid a reader as you appear to be, if you’ve ever even picked up any of these books? Do you know anything about your little girl except that you think she’s fat and unattractive? Is it just that when you look at her you see the woman you conned into a marriage, who you don’t even love? Is that why you can’t even look at Maisie and see how beautiful she is, and what a good heart she has, and how beyond brilliant she is? Is that why you can’t see the way she lights up when she laughs? Have you ever heard her laugh? Have you ever been any kind of a father? Who do you think you are, deciding what she needs and what kind of a man she can get? At least if she could never have a father she can have a good man by her side who loves her and wants to take care of her, and she can take solace in that, and I’m proud of the way I’ve taken care of her, by the way, Mr. Wells. I’m damn bloody proud of it. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to leave. If you’ll excuse me. Good day.”_

_I don’t even take time to look very long at the angry storm clouds forming in his face after the second it takes for his disbelief to pass before I turn and storm out of the room, taking care to close the door softly behind me so as to be the bigger person. Slamming the door would only give him satisfaction._

_With adrenaline still pumping through my veins, and my heart racing and threatening to send me into a rage, I march through the halls of this audacious house that’s far too big for three people...in fact, all the staff needs more room than the family who lives upstairs. I’m speed walking so fast that I don’t take any more time to even look at anything, to marvel at this house that’s bigger than anything I’ll ever live in, before I run down the basement stairs and find Maisie still sitting at the servants’ kitchen table with Lynette sharing a bowl of ice cream. Maisie’s got tears running down her face like she was talking about something incredibly difficult, and so I calm myself and place a hand on her shoulder. She looks up at me with wide, worried eyes when she notices how red my face probably is and how much I’m sweating from running so fast. She returns my gesture, letting her arm rest against the small of my back, and I hold eye contact with her for just a second more before returning to politeness and remembering Lynette is there also._

_“What’s wrong with you, baby?,” Lynette asks in her dripping honey voice. “You look like you seen a ghost, or something.”_

_“Maisie, I think we should go after you’re done with your ice cream. I may have just really upset your father.”_

_“The talk didn’t go well?,” she asks as her shoulders fall._

_“Not at all well. I don’t want to get into what he said, because it’s just … you don’t need to hear it. There’s no reason for you to hear anything that was said in there. But trust me, it was all quite uncalled for, and I don’t think we should stay. You don’t need to catch hell for it from either one of those people, as it had nothing to do with you. You’ve been down here the entire time, haven’t you?”_

_“She has,” Lynette answers. “She’s been gettin’ some things out. Sounds like she’s had a real hard go at things out there in England, but you are a lifesaver Mr. David, I’ll tell you what. Maisie told me everything about how you went and got her out of that poor boy’s house and how you been livin’ together ever since. You sound like a mighty good man, and I think you gonna take real good care of my girl here. But I think you’re right that you best be going. Maisie, this our second bowl of ice cream, and if I use it all up on Daisy she’s never gonna let me hear the end of it. Do you have all your things?”_

_“My jacket and purse are still upstairs,” she says through a sniffle, clearly choking back more tears._

_“I’ll go get them for you,” Lynette offers, and slips off up the stairs._

_“Listen, Maisie,” I start off, tucking some tear-stained curls behind one of her ears, “your parents are terrible people.”_

_“Aren’t they just?,” she agrees with a heavy sigh, and she places her hand on mine. “I’m so, so happy to be with you, David. You have really shown me that not everyone is cruel or crazy, and that there is such a thing as a soft place to land.”_

_I want to tell her I love her right here and right now, because now I’m more sure than I’ve ever been that I do, but it’s so far from the right time that the idea of actually doing it right now seems like a joke. And I don’t want her to think for even a second when I tell her that I love her that it’s a joke. I want her to know exactly how serious I am._

_So I’ll wait for the right time, but this isn’t it._

_I pull her close to me, feeling the steady thumping of her heartbeat against my stomach, and let her shrink into the protection of my arms. She lets her arms creep up to my shoulders and her hands squeeze them, and then I catch her staring into my eyes with a longing unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a girl before. She gets up on her tippy toes, cups her hand around the back of my neck, and pulls me down for a kiss. When our lips meet I have to stop myself from kissing her deeper, harder and more passionately, but I want it so bad that I can taste it; I can feel it taking over my entire body. If I’m not careful I’m going to lose control, but I can’t afford to lose control. I can’t afford to love her too hard. I can’t afford to disrespect her or her boundaries. She’s got to lead me, because I will not mess this up or cause her any further damage._

_But damn it, I love her. I love her so much that I’m going to wait until she lets me know what she wants, as much as it’ll kill me, and her shit family be damned. I’m gonna take her out of here just like I took her out of Syd’s house, and we are gonna go back to the van and drive to California and have fun on the rest of the tour. As I said, her shit family be damned._

_“I’ll be your family now, yeah? You don’t need to worry about those assholes anymore. You’re with me now,” I whisper to her when our lips pull apart and we lean our foreheads against one another._

_In a few minutes Lynette returns carrying Maisie’s coat and purse, and she sets them down on the kitchen table to wrap Maisie in a tight hug. She tucks some hair behind Maisie’s ear and palms her cheek just like I did, and I marvel at the motherly love in her eyes when she looks Maisie over. She grabs Maisie’s face with both hands and lays a big kiss on her forehead._

_“You get going now, child. It’s better for you to be away from those nasty people that you were unfortunate enough to be born to. They not your parents, baby. I’m your momma. You just remember that. I always been your momma, from day one when I held you in my arms when your mother got tired of you after a few hours of bringing you home like the shallow, cruel person she is . And you don’t need that old bitch’s love, because you got mine, and I love you more than anybody in the world, except maybe for this amazing young man you got here.” She looks over at me, smiles with all the brightness of the sun, and then turns back to Maisie. “You go out to the car now. I’m gonna have a little talk with this man now, ‘cause I doubt your daddy really had one with him.”_

_Maisie smiles at me, too, and her cheeks flush red with embarrassment, but I’m not afraid of any kind of talk this warm, kind woman could give me. At least when she talks to me I’ll know she has Maisie’s best interest at heart instead of her social status. Maisie wraps Lynette in a hug one more time and kisses her cheek before she says goodbye, and on her way out the basement door she gives me one more appreciative, loving kiss. We’re both just going to leave without even acknowledging her parents, and I don’t even care that it’s rude, because under the circumstances it isn’t rude at all._

_When she slips out the door with one more look at the two of us Lynette offers me a seat at her kitchen table, and sits down across from me. She reaches out and places a dark brown hand on my arm, and she grips it with affection._

_“You take care of my baby,” she warns with a smile. “You love her every day of her life, because that’s what she deserves. And I promise you that the love you give her, she gonna give right back. She has so much love to give and her parents never wanted it, so just like she gives it to me I know she gonna give it to you, too. And you make sure that girl goes to college, you understand? She ain’t gonna waste all those smarts she got. If she apply herself, she gonna be a big deal. You make sure she always writes. If nobody make her she won’t even try, ‘cause she don’t know what she’s capable of.” Lynette and I share a tight hug, and she rumples my hair and chuckles. “And consider cutting that hair, boy.”_

_“It comes with being a rock star,” I joke, and she gives me one more loving pat and sends me on my way._

_At least if Maisie can’t have a loving family she’s got Lynette and me._


	84. Maisie - Cambridge, July 2006 - Syd and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie sees Syd through his journey to the other side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put this chapter off for a long time. It took me days to get around to writing it when it was finally time, and I cried the whole way through. Please enjoy.

Last night I spent two hours on the phone with my attorney while Syd slept. With what little energy he had, he expressed concern to me that his will wasn’t in proper order, and so I took care of all that last night with her. She and I went through everything with a fine tooth comb, looking over every single letter of that thing for any way that Rosemary might have tampered with it. Luckily, we didn’t find much of anything wrong, and now at least Syd can rest easy about that. Everything is as it should be. Rosemary will get the money she so desperately wants, but I won’t be giving her mine. I’ll be giving it directly to Ian and Jill instead. But that’s not what’s important here, because things have taken a real hard turn.

So, forgive me, but the house is in a state. It’s not too terrible. (It’s certainly not to the level of mine and Syd’s house in the ‘60s, thank god.) I’m finding that I can’t keep up with it the way that I was before Syd started to really slow down. I haven’t had time to straighten up or make sure things are put away, so there’s mail (so many fan letters that he doesn’t want me to bring to him every day anymore), all kinds of assorted papers, a mason jar full of old insulin needles that I forgot to properly dispose of, IV supplies, medicine bottles...all of that kind of shit spread out over the kitchen table and the counters. I have been eating as much as I possibly can, but I haven’t had the time or the energy to wash any of my damned dishes. I think I’m still drinking from the same pot of coffee Brenda made last night. My hair is all over the place; I’m gonna have a hell of a time detangling it when I can get a shower in next. It’s not like I haven’t had a lot of time. He’s been sleeping a lot. I’m just feeling so alone and so stressed, and so scared for him that when I’m not in bed with him I’m too paralyzed by my isolation, sadness and grief that I don’t have the energy to do any of it. If Brenda wasn’t coming here I don’t know what I’d do. 

Syd’s last burst of energy came when Jill and Ian brought Emily over five days ago, and we took her on that walk through the garden. That was really the last day that he was able to get out of bed to do anything, but he asked for me to have the hospital bed sent away. He insisted that when the end came he wanted it to come in the bed that we share together. So of course we sent the bed away, and now every night since I’ve been able to sleep with him, and that’s been a nice relief for the both of us. I hold him all night long every night now. I try to envelop him in my warmth so that if he doesn’t have any he can have mine, and I dive headfirst into every moment that I can be close to my husband before I can’t be close to him anymore. I don’t get up anymore to watch TV or try to get MSNBC on the computer after he falls asleep; the time has passed for that. Normally, staying awake all night with nothing to distract me would be impossible, but when I lie down with Syd like that now it’s more like meditating because I get so lost in the way that it feels. Also, I know that it’s what he needs, but I may need it as much as he does. I need to take every single moment that I can to stay right there next to him as much as possible. I don’t want Syd to feel alone for a minute the way he felt so alone for so many years without me. He waited for me, and now I’m waiting with him, and I will be as loyal and as determined as he has been. 

Brenda is the palliative care nurse, a cheerful rail of a woman that kind of looks like Rosemary’s good twin with her glasses and bobbed, silver hair that’s got some blonde streaks in it rather than Rosemary’s ginger red, and wire rimmed glasses that always fall down her nose just like Rosemary’s got. Unlike Rosemary, she’s always ready with a hug and a warm smile instead of a critical word or roaming, judging eyes. Anyway, Brenda came by yesterday evening to check on us. She cleaned Syd’s mouth (as he’s been refusing water for a few days now) with a water soaked cotton swab, gave him some morphine in a drip for pain, and stayed until after he fell asleep to talk to me. 

We sat on the couch facing one another after she brewed me a new pot of coffee, prepared a cup for me, and handed it to me. We sat there together for a few minutes in an awkward silence while I leaned my head in my hand and almost forgot she was there before I felt the touch of her long, thin hand on mine. I apologized, sat myself up and tried to put on a smile, but she saw through me. She knew what an act I was putting on, probably because she’s seen the same act put on so many times. When I looked up at her and I noticed the crinkles around her eyes and the smile lines around her mouth I immediately felt at home in all the warmth in her friendly face. With just one smile she let me know I could unload my burdens safely, and I tried to fight it a little, but eventually I took her up on her offer and collapsed into a pile of tears. I shook and cried for a good five minutes. I buried my hands in my hair and collapsed into my knees and just lost every single bit of emotion that I’d been holding inside all over the room. It wasn’t easy to stifle the sobs before they came out of me so that Syd wouldn’t hear, but I had to. He can’t know how often I do this. He can’t know that I do it at all. I don’t want him worrying about me. It was just so hard to get to the point where I could take one long breath, but Brenda helped guide me through that too.

I managed to calm myself, and then with a pat on my shoulder she broke the horrible, tragic news to me with barely a beat of hesitation. It sounded rehearsed even though it genuinely seemed like it was difficult for her to tell me that Syd was probably going to die by tonight, if not tomorrow morning. It did seem like it was hard for her to tell me, but I know she’s so used to having to do it that I know it doesn’t really bother her. She wanted to be relatable, and to make me feel like she was as heartbroken as I am, but I know it isn’t the same. Nonetheless, I really needed the help with what I’m going to have to do now that Syd has asked that Brenda stop coming. 

Now I change all the IVs and put in the morphine drips, and I turn him on his side when his breathing starts to rattle. And it’s just me, all alone in the house with Syd all the time. It’s funny, because for so long I really couldn’t ask for anything more than sharing the silence of our home with Syd. This house that once felt so alive with just the two of us for so long, for so many perfect days...this house has the chill air of death setting into every room. The room even smells like death...the sterile, plastic smell of medical equipment and rubbing alcohol. Death is all over this house now, wrapping it up in his robes and preparing to squeeze Syd’s life from it. 

Every time I think about Brenda’s words… “Could be as early as tomorrow morning, I’m afraid”... it feels exactly how it did after she’d just said them. It feels like I’m being dragged down into a pit of slow moving, suffocating quicksand by a boulder...just inch by inch, minute by minute I’m sinking a little deeper into a soul sucking fate. The sadness eats away at me like acid when I think about it. 

Time just seems to have slowed down since she left last night, because when she left and I walked back into our bedroom and I looked at him lying there fading in and out of consciousness, eyes fluttering...breathing that varied between frighteningly fast and far too slow...I realized that it’s time for him to go. And since that hit me like a ton of bricks I can’t really tell exactly how much time has passed. It’s been an hour since I last looked at the clock on the wall, but I could’ve sworn it has been three long, terrible days just watching my baby lying there motionless and helpless like that, struggling to breathe and barely hanging on to life. 

When I woke up this morning with my arms still locked around him the only thing that reassured me that he was still alive was his temperature because of the irregularity in his breathing, but after I listened for another minute I could hear the rattling in his throat. I rolled him over on his side, making sure that I didn’t disrupt his IV, and I went to the kitchen to find the thermometer. He was just burning up. The feeling of the one you love burning up in your arms is a terrifying thing to wake up to, and so as soon as I was able to I sprinted down the stairs into the kitchen. I think I might have knocked a picture off the wall on the way. 

I couldn’t find it immediately, and even though I thought that shouldn’t be a big deal I broke down anyway in spite of myself because it felt like it was sucking more time away from Syd and I to have to waste time digging through everything to find a thermometer. I found myself bent over the kitchen counter barely able to breathe, gasping for breath as a maelstrom blew around my insides. I tried so hard not to cry, but I cried anyway...there was a torrential downpour spilling down my face, coming out of my eyes so fast that I couldn’t stop for a second to even try to contain the tears. I clenched my fists, stared up at the ceiling, took a deep breath and found the will to stand back up and dig through the medicine cabinet for the thermometer until I found it.

105 degrees. 

That was his temperature this morning, and though it’s dropped to 104 in the last few minutes, I don’t think it’s dropping because he’s getting better. For a lot of the time that I’ve been here I’ve kind of sustained this illusion that Syd would miraculously get better because I needed to stay strong for him and I was so happy in our marriage that I wanted to believe it would never have to end. But ever since he started refusing to see his friends that illusion has been stripped away in a manner so cruel that I wouldn’t even wish it on the people in my life that I’ve held the strongest grudges against. Syd isn’t getting better. 

This is it. 

This is the culmination of all the months that we’ve spent blissfully loving one another, forgetting that anyone else that we could ever possibly love exists as we got lost in the triumph of being able to start over and find again what we should have always had. This is the final chapter in a great love story that has been cut painfully short not once, but twice, and it is heart wrenching. 

As soon as today, Brenda said, and my gut is telling me that her hunch was probably right. Syd can barely stay awake or breathe now. If not today, then definitely tomorrow. She’s got good intuition, and so do I (at least these days, can’t speak to when I was younger). 

It’s July 6, 2006 today, and it’s 10:59 a.m. It's been seven months and three days since the day I arrived in London and rode back to Cambridge in Rosemary’s old Toyota, and fell back in love with Syd almost immediately (much to my chagrin, and much to his delight). But he always knew, didn’t he? Even when I didn’t know...Syd always knew that we were meant to be all this time, and that it was only circumstances that kept us apart. And thank goodness that one of us did.

I’m sitting on our bed next to him now, holding and rubbing his hand and speaking gentle and reassuring words to him every few minutes, because Brenda told me that he’d be able to hear me even if he didn’t appear to be awake. He’s still rolled over on his side, and it’s helped his body stop making that rattling sound that it was making this morning when I woke up. He’s still in and out of consciousness. Every few minutes he opens his eyes and looks at me, and I see a small spark of the loving gentleness that I’ve adored since I met him in his eyes, and he’s able to summon a very small smile. It warms my heart and makes my stomach flutter...even on his deathbed Syd still gives me butterflies. 

He closed his eyes just now and went into unconsciousness again, and it strikes me all of a sudden that there’s one surefire way to make Syd feel at peace right now. He loves music, even if he won’t admit it anymore. When we used to drive in the car to and from his doctor’s appointments music always helped him calm down if it was the right kind. Classical music always helped him, but something’s telling me maybe that’s not the right thing for this particular moment. He told me that he wasn’t afraid to die, but I suspect he might have been trying to comfort me, and that it might not be the whole truth. He needs to listen to something he loves, something that has always made him feel comforted.

I know exactly what kind of music I should play, and luckily I burned the soundtrack onto a CD for him so we could listen to it in the car a few months ago.

Peter Pan.

Peter Pan is such a comfort to Syd, whether we’ve watched it after he’s had panic attacks, or watched it after doctor’s appointments he has always loved it and felt put at ease by it. If anything will make him feel soothed and at peace, I almost certain it will be that, and so I kiss his forehead and get up to fetch the CD and boombox from the living room. It takes me a minute to find the CD buried under all the other ones I’ve burned for him, but in a moment of small, but palpable triumph I find it, unplug the boombox and carry them both to the bedroom where I find Syd awake and stirring. 

In a hurry to rush to his side I plug the boombox into the outlet behind my dresser, pop the CD and start the music. I sit down beside him and run my fingers along his sunken, papery skinned cheek. Though the bright, warm sunlight filters in through the closed blinds I haven’t turned the overhead light on so it’s pretty dark in here. Instead I’ve lit a few cookie scented candles for some gentle low light and so a scent that I know he loves spreads itself throughout the room, and that he’ll be comforted by that if he can smell it. 

“I’m here, baby,” I whisper gently to him. “I’m here.” 

“My Maisie…” he manages to say in a cracked, dry voice. He’s clearly straining to say the words when he forces them out. 

“Do you hear the music, sweetheart? I put Peter Pan on for you.” 

With one more faint smile he fades away again, and I stroke his cheek, his head and his arm and chest for a little while. I bend down and brush my lips against his forehead, and I decide listening to the music isn’t enough...he would love to hear me sing one of the songs, wouldn’t he? He loves my singing, so I get up close to his ear, rubbing my thumb along the back of his hand, and I take a breath.

“The second star to the right shines in the night for you  
To tell you that the dreams you plan really can come true  
The second star to the right shines with a light so rare   
And if it’s Neverland you need, this light will lead you there  
Twinkle, twinkle little star so we’ll know where you are  
Gleaming in the skies above, lead us to the land we dream of  
And when your journey is through, each time we say goodnight   
We’ll thank the little that star that shines…  
The second from the right.” 

Upon finishing the last line, I find my eyes filling with tears that I’m trying so hard to choke back, but I can feel so intensely that Syd understands and that I can still be strong for him even if I cry a little. What else can I do but cry anymore? I feel him slipping away from me a little more with every second that passes as his breathing becomes more labored and slow, and his body begins to cool. I wipe my eyes before my tears fall, hoping to conceal them to the best of my ability, but one tear escapes and falls onto his arm. I sit up, stare down into his peaceful face with the smallest hint of a smile still left on it, and I swear I can feel his spirit starting to pull away from his body. It’s almost like his soul is sort of slowly making its way out of his vessel to move on its merry way, but before he can slip away forever I bring my lips against his and treasure one last kiss...one last union of our lips, one last meeting of two hearts. 

I spend at least 30 seconds kissing all over his precious face before I know I need to stop and let him be.

With my hand in his, squeezing it but not too tightly, I lean my head on his bony shoulder one last time and listen to the last beats of his beautiful, kind, loving, gentle, and childlike heart that has been so untouched by all of his trauma and chaos. His heart is my heart, and my heart is his heart, and now one half of me is slowly fading away, lost to the unstoppable and relentless seas of time. 

“I love you so much, my baby. I love you to the moon and back, and no matter what happens or where I go I will love you until my last breath. And when I go someday, I know you’ll be right there in Neverland waiting for me so we can be together again, and we can be young again. We’ll never have to grow old. We’ll be just like we were when we were kids...happy and wrapped up in each other with all the hope in the world, still innocent and untarnished. We’ll sing and dance and play, and we’ll never ever have to give up the love we share to life’s ups and downs and bad circumstances. I’ll kiss you a million times every day and we’ll do our sketches and coloring, and I’ll bake cakes and cookies for you all the time. We’ll walk in all the beautiful gardens, and play with the mermaids and run with the Lost Boys. We’ll be Wendy and Peter Pan, but for real. Please wait for me, baby, just like you did for all these years. Wait for me, because I’ll come back for you, my love.” I pause, take another deep, cleansing breath, and admit, “It’s okay to go now. I’ll be okay, and I’ll do exactly as you asked and I’ll talk to David so you don’t have to worry about me, and even if he rejects me I promise you I can take care of myself and I will be perfectly fine. You don’t need to hang on because you want to make sure I’ll be okay. I will be. I want you to be at peace. You’ve lived such a long life in such a short time, and your peace is all I want. I love you.” 

I turn over on my side and lace my fingers with his, rubbing my thumb in circles over it again and again while tears roll down my face, and it’s at that moment that his breathing becomes a little quieter and a lot slower. There’s a cloud of very quiet serenity that fills the room, and after a few more slow, shallow, quiet breaths, there … are … no more breaths. Syd ceases to breathe. I reach for his body and place my hand on his chest, clinging to some remaining, though dwindling hope that it’s just another pause in his breathing. I’m searching for a pulse like it’s my phone lost in my bottomless purse. I grab a hold of his wrist, hanging on to one last shred of hope, and I grip it so hard that I almost hope he’s gone so he doesn’t have to feel the pain. But no, that last shred of hope is dashed against the wall like an animal meant for slaughter. It’s so sudden that it’s as if it doesn’t even matter that it’s about to break me. 

I place Syd’s wrist down on the bed again just like I would if he … if he were still here: gently, lovingly, with every care to be as gentle as possible just in case somehow he can still feel it. The candle flickering and the golden sun rolling in through the blinds complement the peace that’s filtered in through all the muck of death that had settled in before now. 

Syd’s body is still lying motionless and unoccupied next to me, and I get up off the bed and kneel down next to him, taking one more moment to stroke his cheek before I stand up and walk away. But I turn back one last time to gaze at him lying there bathed in candlelight and late morning sunlight, and I realize when I fix my eyes on the sunlight spilling in through the dismal cracks that I can’t feel Syd in here, but I do know where he is. 

I know exactly where Syd’s gone, and it’s nowhere in this dusty old house. 

And that’s when I find myself leaving the room without even thinking about doing so, running down the stairs like a little girl on Christmas morning and pulling open the back door to stare out at the garden where the sun plays off each and every spray of color like it’s brand new. All the flowers stand at attention facing the sun, and I swear I see a faint, silvery outline of him there sitting on our bench, gazing out at the sea of color and joy all around him that we made together. And for a second I catch him glancing at me out of the corner of his eye as that flirty, boyish smile creeps across his face before he fades away again, but I can still feel him all around me. I can still feel his jovial, youthful energy rushing through the very core of my being and overwhelming me with his innocent yet endless love.

I see him in all the colors of the flowers: all the yellows, greens, blues, purples and pinks. I see his jeans splattered with drops of paint in every color imaginable, and the stains of pink icing around his lips from the strawberry cake we made on Valentine’s Day. I see Syd in the grass that’s gently blowing in the warm summer wind and in every small creature that wanders through the yard. 

A little yellow and black butterfly even lands on my shoulder for a second before it flies off into the sky to enjoy the sunshine and the nectar of the flowers on this particularly beautiful morning. 

Yes, Syd is gone, but he’ll never really be gone. 

Syd will be everywhere that I am, I think as I hold my delicate necklace in between my fingers. He will always be with me, and I will carry him with me every day for the rest of my days.


	85. David - Cambridge, 1970 - David and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With another year behind them, Maisie and David take another major step in their relationship.
> 
> NSFW!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So!
> 
> Welcome to the last actual chapter of Vol 2! Yay! But that's not all: you've still got 3 epilogues and 2 bonus scenes coming 😊

_Maisie’s sleeping next to me._

_I was having some difficulty getting to sleep, so I’d started to try and meditate using her breathing as something to keep my focus on. Her deep, slumbering breaths sound so tranquil that I thought I could easily get lost in them, but now that I’m talking to you it doesn’t feel like meditation is going to happen for quite a bit. So I’ll keep on listening to her breathe like that, but I’m not going to bother with trying to sleep now. There comes a point where you sort of give up on the idea of getting any solid sleep and stay up for the rest of the day until it’s time to try it again the next evening._

_I often have trouble getting to sleep at night, especially if something is weighing heavily on my mind. Nothing’s weighing heavily on my mind now, though. Sometimes my thoughts race, I suppose, maybe that’s what’s going on this evening, but I rather can’t help it as much as I wish I could. It was a problem before I even met Maisie. But now I’m lying here next to her, we’re together, and there was a time where I thought I couldn’t even say hello to her, so all my worries have gone....then why can’t I sleep?_

_I turn over and take a long look at Maisie, trying to take in everything and try to accept that it’s not a dream, that we’ve even gotten here, and I notice her lying on her side with her back towards me. Her shoulders rise and fall a little bit with each deep breath, and I swear I can hear the steady, relaxed beating of her heart all the way over here. I wonder why she’s not in my arms right now. She was when we fell asleep, but she must have pulled away, or perhaps I did. It happens. Look at the way she’s so beautiful at rest with her hair in a loose ponytail sprawling over her pillow with its satin pillowcase to protect her hair, and the way she’s pulled our cream coloured cotton sheet over her shoulder. The moonlight spills in through our white lace curtains and bathes her an almost unearthly, pale silver glow. When she moisturises her skin with that cocoa butter it sometimes glitters in the silvery moonlight, and she’s glittering like that right now. I want to run my fingers over the supple, smooth skin of her bare arm, grab a hold of her around her waist, slide my fingers down between her legs and make her cum a few times, but it’ll have to wait._

_Do you think it’s the right time to tell her I’m in love with her?_

_I may have been in love with her a few weeks after she moved in when we started to have breakfast together and chat in the morning. I think maybe it was one of those days where I woke her up with a cup of coffee, and she rolled over and groaned like she always does when she has to wake up. She always yawns so deeply, and then stretches out, and she ends every stretch with a high-pitched squeak. I thought it was all so cute, and I realised at one of those moments that I was done for._

_And I am so, so done for. I am so well done that if I were a steak no sane human being would deign to have a bite of me. I’m crazy about her, and I am pretty certain that if I tell her I’m in love with her that she’ll say she feels the same, but I’m just not sure it’s the right time (will it ever be?). We’ve only been together for a few weeks now, but it seems so much longer because we’ve been living together and acting as a couple since she came here even if neither of us could see the forest for the trees, and insisted we were instead only friends. It’s felt like I’ve had a girlfriend for months, even if it’s only been weeks._

_We celebrated Christmas alone together this year, as Cora and Roger went to Cora’s mothers, Rick took Jane to meet his parents, and Nick and Amelia traveled to London to stay with Amelia’s sister. It didn’t matter to me in the least though, nor to her, because it was our first Christmas, and it was perfectly fine...more than fine...to spend it alone together. We made Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas morning breakfast together, and she baked chocolate chip cookies and a pumpkin pie. We watched a bunch of old movies and exchanged gifts...I gave her a red hair ribbon and some creme rinse and spray for her hair, and she gave me a bunch of new guitar picks and a hot water bottle for my headaches. We kissed under the mistletoe and sang a few carols while I played the piano...I love the way she sings. And when both days were done we went to bed together and she lay in my arms until she fell asleep. I didn’t get to see my family this year because they were off in all directions, and my father had to travel for work, but I think I can say with confidence that this was the best Christmas I ever had._

_As for New Year’s Eve, we went to a party._

_I didn’t notice you there, so I suppose I’ll just describe it for you. I can’t sleep, anyway, and I don’t have anything else to do._

_Maisie and I joined Rick and Jane and Roger and Cora at Nick and Amelia’s for a New Year’s Eve party. It was great fun, we were all stoned or drunk and lazing on one of the sofas, or the living chair, the ottoman, or the floor. Maisie and I were in the loveseat, and she’s so small she could lie on her back with her head in my lap and have enough room with her legs bent to fit. So she was gazing up at me, joint hanging out of her mouth, and a big weird smile on her face, and she was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe when Rick was ranting about one of the big wigs at the studio that she almost let the joint fall onto the floor. I was smiling down at her; I love to watch her laugh like that. She reached her arm up toward me and touched my cheek, and before I got lost in her I happened to notice Roger staring at us, of course, looking all hurt and sad while Cora sat beside him on the ottoman and slung her arm around his shoulder (while being pissed enough to have a civilised conversation with Amelia Mason - Jesus Christ is Amelia awful, by the way, but I’m sure the others have hinted at it to you while not being quite so direct), and she didn’t even notice how he gazed in our direction, putting himself in my place in his mind, watching every move we made and every we look we gave one another. It’s haunting. How does no one else notice this? Or are all we British folks just so polite that we can’t even fathom making an issue out of it?_

_Then Nick put on some Ultimate Spinach, and we all went back to smoking our grass and drinking our liquor, and Roger grew more sullen and angry staring at us the way he was. The more he poured that bottle of whiskey down his throat the darker his face, and indeed his entire presence, became. His shoulders curled in and his beautiful reddish brown locks fell in his face and over his eyes, and his lips pursed. Maisie didn’t even look at him long enough to notice, and I think everyone else was ignoring it except perhaps Jane who looked over from behind her book every few minutes at what everyone was doing, shook her head, and went right back to her reading. She’s a strange little bird, that one. Anyhow…_

_Roger was sitting there hunched over twisting his ring, and if it were a movie I think his eyes would have glowed white or yellow like demon’s eyes looking out through his creepy hair curtains the way he was. I tried to turn my attention back to Maisie, but she was deeply involved with talking about Richard Nixon and how horrible he is with Nick, so I took one long look at her and turned back and saw Roger, as usual wearing his trademark black t-shirt and jeans with black boots. He caught me looking at him this time, and he locked eyes with me...his steely snake’s eyes hooking into mine. He could disguise those sea green eyes as being so vulnerable, but when he’s not pretending to be anything other than a sour, megalomaniacal, obsessive and mean person that’s when the reptile comes out of him._

_He shot me a death glare: the kind of death glare that’s like daggers spiraling toward your face at a kilometer a second. I smiled at him, compelled to let him know I was unbothered by his attempt to intimidate me, and turned my attention to the conversation Nick and Maisie were having._

_That’s when Roger jolted up out of his seat like a rocket, marched outside with his half full bottle of whiskey and threw it and smashed it in the middle of the street._

_Maisie was so spooked that I promptly collected our things, we said goodnight to everyone, and we got out about a minute after Jane had scampered out through the back door, a long braid of flaming hair trailing behind her. Cora was shaking, terrified to go outside and confront him as his screams grew so loud that they were coming through the closed front door and windows. I was so embarrassed for Nick and Amelia that they were going to have to deal with some angry neighbours, but I was even more embarrassed for poor Cora, likely the one to have to go out there and try and settle the mood he’d gotten himself into. Her face was stained with tears when Maisie was hugging and kissing her goodnight. I’d bet she’s tired of dealing with Roger’s moods...so why does she stay? The world may never know._

_So we left, and then we came back here._

_It was 11:45 when we got home, and so she set a timer to midnight and I put some smooth jazz on to set the mood. I pulled her down onto the sofa and into my body, and she swung her legs over mine, and I rested my chin on top of her head. We talked for a while, smoked a little more, laughed about Roger having a fit in the street, and then the timer dinged signaling that it was at last midnight, and officially 1970. She pulled me close to her right at the stroke of midnight, and she pressed her lips against mine. I held her close and grabbed the back of her head, getting lost in every touch of her lips, and soon I lay down and pulled her body down on top of me, and we were thrown into a sea of passion that was so wild it could’ve capsized an entire ship. I slid my hand down her back, and I paused before she arched her back and I grabbed a handful of her perfect round ass. I squeezed it, and it was perfect. Big, but firm. A perfect bubble, and she hates it, but I’d been waiting for that moment for years, too afraid to admit it to myself._

_But I froze after that, the shy thing that I am. I don’t know if she was expecting more, but I grew terrified that I was pushing her too hard, and I lost the stiffie that had been stirring beneath my knickers in anticipation of being able to find its way inside her hole or her mouth. She didn’t seem to be unhappy about me having grabbed her like that, though, as she had spread her legs over me and I felt her mound resting against the bulge in my jeans. I think she wanted it too, but I got spooked, and I stopped. It hasn’t come up since then. Maybe she thinks I don’t want her that way._

_That couldn’t be further from the truth, you know, and I’ll show her that soon. I don’t talk about it a lot, but I want to fuck her so bad I can taste it. I fight with the urges quite often. I try to be decent, to be respectful, to keep in mind that she’s still in such a vulnerable state, and so I repress it as often as I can...but it’s growing more and more difficult the closer she and I become to keep it from my mind. I look her over, survey every curve of her body, and then she turns around and I get a glimpse of that ass, and then I start to wonder what she might taste like, and well... I’ve had to step out of the room, I got such an erection._

_I’ve gotten so lost in thought that it’s taken me a minute to notice her tossing and turning in bed beside me. Soon the tossing and turning turns to shaking, and then she starts to hyperventilate, and before long the hyperventilating has turned to sobs. She must have been asleep for some of it, but she’s awake now, and she’s curled herself up into a fetal position while sobs flow from her mouth like troubled waters. Her shoulder trembles and shakes as she curls further into herself, trying to shrink away into nothing so she doesn’t have to feel her pain anymore. I know exactly what’s happening: she’s having one of her nightmares. They are happening with less frequency now, but they still do happen. Luckily, she calms down more easily now since we started our deep breathing exercises a few months ago, so perhaps it won’t be too hard to help her through this one._

_I used to be terrified to reach for her and hold her the way I wanted to when these episodes happened, but now that we’ve made our relationship official I don’t feel any fear anymore. It just hasn’t really come up since then now that Syd’s been taken away by his sister and god knows what’s been done with him (and I don’t much care what’s happened to him so long as he isn’t anywhere near here). So I reach for her and I pull her body close to my own, making sure she’s secure and that she’s got her head resting near my armpit so she can be as close to me as she needs to be. I wrap my arm around her back, and place my other across my stomach and touch her shoulder with my hand. I squeeze her, just a little, because sometimes pressure helps with heightened emotions, and well...it feels good for me too. I lean down and kiss the top of her head, and through her sobs and shaking she stretches an arm out across my chest and leans her head on my shoulder._

_“I’m here, Maisie. You’re safe. You’re safe with me, okay?”_

_A few more wilting sobs leave her body as I rub her back and stroke her hair until her breathing slows. We take a few deep breaths together, and I squeeze her arm as her body rises and falls in tune with her breathing._

_“Thank you, David. Thank you so much.”_

_“Didn’t take long at all tonight. You’re making progress,” I tease, and I turn my head to see her smiling at me. It’s not often that she smiles after she wakes up from these nightmares, in fact...this may be the first time it’s happened. Usually, she passes right back out after we’ve gotten her calmed down. But tonight’s not the same. Something about her seems different, almost like the nightmares aren’t as bad anymore, but it can’t be that. Trauma doesn’t just go away. There’s something else going on, I realise, as she stares harder into my eyes, and I can read so clearly the passion that’s awakened within them._

_She stretches her hand out and twirls a lock of my hair around her finger, some tear stains lingering on her cheeks even though the corners of her mouth are turned up in a warm smile. I wipe away the least tear, and she grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls me in for a kiss. She parts her lips and welcomes my tongue into her mouth, and then I pull her on top of me, her soft body enveloping mine in its warmth. I feel a stirring in my trousers again, and I fear that this may be a really inappropriate time, but I can’t help it...and if she doesn’t mind, I see no reason to deny myself._

_Maisie’s legs spread over my body, each leg gripping my hips tight as she finds her way to my face and grabs both sides of my head. I stare into her beautiful brown eyes that shimmer in the moonlight and pull her closer again for another kiss, a kiss that this time is more forceful, more passionate, more frantic than the one we had just shared before I pulled her on top of me. Between kisses, she moans out my name, and I stop to let her speak._

_“I think I’m in love with you, David,” she whispers as our eyes meet, and she strokes my cheek._

_My heart starts pounding inside my chest, threatening to burst through the walls of my ribs and crack them into pieces on its way out. My face heats up, my stomach twists up in pleasant little knots that contract and relax along with my heartbeat, and I feel like I’m on a roller coaster climbing up to get ready for a huge drop. It’s thrilling._

_I pull her in for another kiss, and I grasp hard at her waist as my lips explore every inch of hers, and I take her bottom lip in my teeth just a little and nip at it. She giggles as our lips pull apart, and I run my hands up her back and into her hair, and then I take hold of both sides of her face. Her eyes glimmer like black diamonds as she smiles at me, her pink lips like petunia petals luring me back into her mouth. After one more kiss … one more kiss that feels like home in a whole new way...she’s opened the door, and I never thought she would._

_“I’m in love with you,” I whisper to her, “and I have been wanting to tell you that for so long, so thank you for making it rather easy on me. God, I love you, you know?,” I say, turning over on my side and helping her lie beside me. I reach a hand toward her, noting that even in the mute, mystic moonlight her cheeks are flushing as I graze one of them with my fingers. “I love everything about you.”_

_“That’s a good coincidence, then, because I love everything about you, too. Even the stuff you do that’s annoying sometimes,” she teases, sticking out her tongue and wrinkling up her nose at me._

_“Oh, I could annoy you. You have no idea,” I chortle. “You have no idea how I could really bother you right now,” I find myself almost growling at her as I snicker and stick my fingers in her ribs to tickle her._

_She squirms and squeals with laughter, kicking her legs and howling like a madwoman. With her fluffy, spiraled sea of hair falling in her face she turns onto her back, trying to catch her breath as I find my way on top of her, holding her arms down with my legs. I smile down at her and she starts laughing before I can even get my fingers hooked back into her ribs, but then I watch her eyes wander to my cock, which almost unbeknownst to me has grown to twice its size and is now making its way out of the whole in my pyjama trousers. When I panic and move to cover it, she pulls her arm out from under me and bats my hand away._

_“Don’t put it away,” she purrs in a pleading, but sultry velvet voice. “Let me see it, David. Please?”_

_She didn’t have to beg; I don’t waste a moment’s time before I pull my cock out and let her look over every inch of it with wide, willing eyes … her gaze roaming over it like she’s never seen anything quite like it. As she raises her hand to trail along my hip and my stomach and finally over my cock I grimace with pleasure, rolling my eyes back inside my head. I feel myself start to shiver as her fingers slide down to my balls until she’s cupping them in her hands, squeezing them only just enough to make me let a long, slow moan escape my mouth. But I can’t let her try to get me off just yet; there’s too much that needs to be done first._

_“If you think that I’m going to get intimate with you the first time and start at you sucking my cock you’re very, very wrong,” I whisper in her ear, my voice slipping into a growl at the end of my sentence as I grab her and pull her up onto her knees, grab her shoulders, and lean my head in toward her neck._

_Her breathing grows more rapid and shallow...a bit of a contrast from the deep, slumbering breaths and the frantic, wild breathing from not long ago. She smells like a woman… I’m hit with the warm, inviting cocoa smell that accompanies her, and it makes me want her harder._

_She’s trembling now while my lips trail every inch of the side of her neck until I brush them against where her neck meets her ear...right under the lobe. My tongue peeks out of my mouth a bit as I suck on her earlobe and move my hands down to grab onto the bottom of her pale blue lace trimmed nightgown that lands right above her knee. I slide it up over her body, letting my fingers trail along her smooth alabaster skin...her strong, thick thighs, the wholeness and roundness of her hips...then the smallest protrusions of hip bones sitting directly below the cushion on top of what might be pretty strong abdominal muscles. She’s a lot more muscular than I had expected she would be._

_My hands work their way up the curvature of her waist, taking the nightgown up and over her small, firm teardrop breasts and soft, pert, pencil rubber nipples. I slip it over her head and throw my arms around her now nude body, and push my hands down her back and over the curve of her ass. We kiss, our arms finding their way around one another in a passionate fury, until she pulls away, hooks her hands into my trousers and slides them all the way off with her hands trailing my skin just the way I did for her. My entire body trembles at her gentle touch, and once she’s got my trousers around my knees she grips my thighs in her hands, and then my ass, and I bite my lip as I lean my head back and a moan escapes my lips._

_Once I’ve got a hold of myself I reach for her and cup her breasts in my hands, my fingers exploring every inch of those two perfect, firm, round lumps of flesh and the tiny nipples that sit in front of them. In a low, breathy voice she moans, and I bend down and take one nipple in my mouth, flicking my tongue over it and gently nibbling while her moans turn into screams. I know she’s wet; I can almost smell it on her, so I move one hand all the way down her body, trailing her skin with my finger, and then I grab a hold of the muff between her legs and open her lips._

_Her pores start to get moist with sweat that glistens in the moonlight as I use my index finger to make gentle circles around her throbbing clit. She throws her head back and her thighs quake so much that eventually she starts to wobble, and that’s when I push her down onto her back. Her legs drop to each side; they flop as if they’re made out of jell-o, and with them spread so far apart I’m able to get a real good look at the way her pussy looks...and it makes me wonder what it might taste like._

_I give her a devilish grin and lower myself between her legs as her head is tilted up and her legs are shaking with anticipation. She jolts like I’m shooting electric current through her body as I lower my face close to her wet pussy, and then I get closer to it, making sure to lay kisses all across her inner thighs on the way. Finally I push my tongue against it and revel in its earthy taste, circling her clit with my tongue as she screams and writhes like a woman possessed. I grab hold of her hips and squeeze them, pulling her closer to my face and licking at her faster until she’s sliding her pussy up and down my face, shaking and seizing, and then she lets out one more grateful moan and goes limp on her bed. I know I’ve made her cum, I can taste it like butter on my tongue._

_“Let me suck your cock,” she moans from up there, still with her head facing the back wall and her legs spread. I rest my head on her stomach, catching my breath, and then I flop onto my back, my rod still standing at attention for her, throbbing with desire for her as she makes her way toward me._

_She starts to trail her warm, wet tongue down my stomach, tasting every inch of the straight line she makes with enthusiasm. Her tongue feels warm and wet against my body, and she greets my erection with a long, sensuous lick up the shaft. I shut my eyes and immerse myself in the way her mouth on me makes me feel liberated, like I’ve been freed from the shackles of trying to rein in my desire. I look down at her, and she’s got my entire cock in her mouth. She stares back up at me, and her eyes, alight with flames so hot they burn blue, bore a hole through me, exposing me and everything I’ve ever wanted. She grabs my hand and places it on top of her head, and although unsure about it I guide her head up and down on me only a little, almost like I’m suggesting it, but then she tightens her lips around me and starts to move her head up and down faster as she picks up her pace. I grunt and moan as her lips and tongue slide from the bottom of my shaft to the tip of my cock, and I feel myself being pushed through the narrow canal of her throat. Her full, pink lips wrapped around me and her head at the very base of my cock throws me into a frenzy, and I pull her head up off of me and throw her down on her back._

_I turn toward my side table and rifle through it for one leftover condom that I had from awhile back, unpack it, roll it up over myself and turn back to her. She’s waiting, her thighs spread and her breathing heavy, on her back, watching me roll the condom up over myself. I can see the desire in her eyes...I can feel it radiating off of her like an intense heat as I crawl up to her, settling myself between her legs, and pull her legs up on either side of me. She wraps her strong, shapely thighs around me and squeezes my hips, pulling me closer to her and refusing to let me move anywhere. I force my way inside that tight, sweet pussy and she leans her head back and tugs at my hair as I start to thrust into her. Her body trembles as we both begin to sweat, and I start to kiss her as we move in unison, she bucking up against me to meet my every thrust. Our lips dance senselessly together, our souls fully conjoined and tangled up in one another just as our bodies are. We are truly one._

_My sack slaps against her ass with a loud smack, and she digs her nails into my back while staring at the ceiling and losing herself in the pleasurable moans breaking out of her mouth. With my lips still exploring and cherishing hers, and my cock still thrusting in and out of her, I feel my body start to shake and my cock starts to jerk and tremble as I let loose my entire load inside the condom._

_After a few minutes of clean up we find ourselves wrapped in one another, a sea of arms and legs and hair. I’m sucking down a cigarette, and she’s slumbering beside me._

_I think this is only the beginning of beautiful nights like these._

_And now, I know for certain that I can sleep, and that I can wake up in the morning next to the woman I love._

_I’ll see you again real soon. It’s well past my bedtime._


	86. EPILOGUE - Rosemary - August 2006 - Syd and Maisie's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosemary gets one last laugh. 
> 
> CW: Hostage situation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the first of three epilogues! I thought about giving one to every character, and I still may, but for now this is what I've got.

It’s been quite a chilly month since my brother finally decided he was finished burdening himself upon everyone in his life who ever loved him, and by ‘chilly’ I don’t mean that it’s been a brisk summer, but rather that the air between May and myself has never been colder. We’ve been doing cleanup here in this strange little house (if you saw how my mother kept it you wouldn’t believe it’s the same house...at least it’s an improvement upon the absolute shithole that it had been before May moved in and cleared out all the ugly things he made). Picking things up, taking things out, putting things in boxes. Oftentimes we are at opposite sides of the house, but sometimes even in the same room sorting through things, and we speak not a word to one another. There’s nothing but a lingering, cold silence in the air, except for today with its violent winds that blow rain sideways, beating into the roof and the house. It’s violent and despairing just like the tension between us in this house. 

Beyond that, I’ve been keeping a keen watch on every single thing in this house that I think I could possibly make even a pence on. Everything from clothing to weird old paintings on construction paper… Oh, do I have entire books filled with Maisie this and Maisie that, paintings of May, paintings of Roger and May … paintings of the two of them rolling in the grass, a satyr and I suppose a fat nymph of some sort. I’ve set them aside. Perhaps I’ll auction them online in a few years, right when she’s settled into the peace of her golden years. Anyhow...

I found a bunch of these old notebooks filled with bizarre ramblings about whatever topic my brother had stuck in his mind at any given moment, things he’d copied word for word out of textbooks or whatever he did in his vast amounts of empty spare time to get lost in his broken head. 

Putting mental price tags on every belonging you come across is dreadfully exhausting, and that hasn’t helped my mood nor my patience with my “sister-in-law”. There’s a lot less rubbish around here than I thought there would be at any given point in our lives. Even when he was living with Mum, Roger had a penchant for keeping an absolute mess, but May has kept their home infuriatingly tidy. My brother no longer throws rubbish in a heap on the hardwood floor in the dining room, nor does he toss leftover food and drink all over the place...doesn’t leave his washtub caked in grime and a ring of shit around his toilet bowl. Now the porcelain in the toilet and the washtub are sparkling, the counters are spotless, the floors are immaculate, the entire kitchen smells like Fabuloso, the shelves are dusted and the furniture and decor are tidy, and apparently my brother helps (which just rattles my cage, I must say...same bloke who sat like a lump while I slaved around his house for decades) 

Something is interesting (and unexpected), however, I must confess: I thought when May came here I’d be relieved to get the burden of Roger off of my shoulders, but the past few months have left me feeling bitter, lonely and completely without purpose. There’s been nothing for me to do, as all I had ever done after my duties as a mother were over is take care of crazy old Roger and save his life time and time again. I find the days quite empty over the past few months. There’s nothing but shopping, cleaning, eating and petting my dog. Bills, my savings slipping away, you know… things one deals with when they are not a weird old rockstar or a spoiled rotten little heiress. 

There’s no one at all to talk to since the only friend I ever really had was my brother, and I’ve grown listless, bored and isolated spending my days sitting alone in my living room on the sofa watching television. My son doesn’t speak to me much anymore, either. It’s hell to get even Bernard on the phone. He’ll give me the time of day to talk about our auction once every few weeks, but otherwise he wants to hear nothing from me. I believe he realised at some point that getting any sort of payment out of me was going to be rather difficult, if not impossible, since every plan we made to swindle my brother out of all of his fortune unfortunately failed.

I’m afraid I’m all alone these days without my brother to keep things interesting, my son to talk to, or any friends. I’ve just about gone off the deep end sitting alone in my house every day since May and Roger stopped inviting me by and Ian and his cunt wife started to keep to themselves. I feel I have only one person to lay the blame for all of my loneliness, isolation, lack of purpose and poverty on, and that is the slut that’s sorting through Roger’s things in his spare bedroom closet right now. 

There wasn’t nearly enough time for me to even try and make her life here a living hell, as I remember I had promised to do. Nearly right after I had made that promise to myself I started to see less and less of my brother and his “wife”, as if she knew that I was out to get her, and she planned accordingly. I barely saw a wink of Roger after May caught Bernard and I trying to get Roger to sign all of his money over to us that one afternoon, and whether it’s because schemed and turned him against me, or whether it was simply the death process I suppose I will never know. But I do know that I have my suspicions, and along with all of my anger and bitterness, my suspicions lead me to one place. 

May Wells.

It all goes back to her, doesn’t it? 

Everything changed in my life when that nasty, fat little whore came here and lured my brother away, and now I’m left with no friends, no family, and nothing but my beloved dog to keep me company, and thank my lucky stars for her, because without her there would be no one.

I feel so profoundly unloved and unfulfilled, and I suppose it was only a matter of time. Roger alienated every friend I ever had, whether it was because he dated and dumped them or because his erratic behaviour, social dysfunction and outbursts scared them off. 

But as I crane my neck toward the spare bedroom, and I hear May rustling about in the closet doing whatever she’s doing I find myself overtaken by suspicion, as usual, for I don’t trust the fat slag as far as I could throw her (that is to say, not far). I suspect that she’s been meaning to throw all his things away for months now. I’ve seen her eyeing some of his possessions, scrutinizing them just like I do, only instead of wanting to bring in some extra money for herself she’d rather just throw them all out and waste them. Imagine being so privileged and unconcerned about money, and so stuck in your ways that you throw away perfectly good possessions that you could possibly get a good sum money for. I’m not going to let that happen, though; someone has to profit off of this goldmine. If I couldn’t get my hands on his entire fortune the way I was meant to, I’m going to take money from him in the next best way: pawning his dumb shitty furniture off on his creepy fans who for some reason have remain obsessed with him even though they haven’t seen or heard shit from him in decades. Some are so young that they weren’t even alive when he was famous. So if they want to come in here and clutter up their own homes with his stupid handmade furniture and weird paintings, then that’s their prerogative, and I’ll be happy to profit off of them. It’s the least of what I’m owed after decades of dealing with Roger’s utter chaos and bullshit.

So as I’d mentioned It’s a very windy, rainy day. There’s a storm coming, and the winds are blowing like mad outside in the backyard; I notice the trees are bending in the wind, some looking like they could snap at any moment in the violent squall and perhaps come flying into the room, miss me, and bash her bloody head in. Rain is falling sideways in sheets out there, and I see, hear, and can feel now that I’ve gone closer to the window and feel the rain sprinkling through the screen and onto my arm that May forgot to close the bedroom window from before it started when it was so hot she couldn’t bear it. She must be so lost in her sorting and throwing away that she doesn’t notice it. This gives me an incredible idea: a brilliant idea. An idea for the ages...you’re going to love it.

I had mentioned that I never got the chance to make May’s life a living hell, hadn’t I? I had mentioned how I haven’t seen my brother in the past month, yes? And as such, I had no opportunity to terrorise her the way I would have very much liked to, but there’s no time like the present, is there? It’s never too late for psychological warfare. If I don’t take this chance I may never get another one. Yes, this idea I just had...this will make about an hour of May’s life a living hell. 

First of all, May’s phone is resting on the dining room table with a bunch of boxes, and so she won’t be able to get it. 

Roger’s closet door locks from the outside with a padlock I put in after Mum moved out. Anyone could very easily have put it back in the lock position before closing the door. I know sometimes I’ve done that by mistake as it’s very convenient to just close it when you’re finished, and not have to worry about remembering to lock it again. Not like it needs to be locked, but when he lived here alone it was done for his own safety, as a lot of things are stored in there that could have been a danger to him were he to lose his marbles again like rope, cords, and tools. Hm...

Yes, this is my final act of revenge: my final act of retribution for stealing my life, my purpose, and my money. This is likely the last bit of May’s suffering I will be able to enjoy before she leaves to go back to the States and do whatever the fuck she’s going to do with her life...fuck all the blokes and ladies that she wants or drug herself into a stupour, or whatever it is she does with herself. This is my last chance to enjoy her screams of terror, and I am going to hit where it hurts the most to derive as much bliss from it as I possibly can.

Without a peep, quiet as a mouse, I creep through the hallway that leads to the bedroom and enter the room, being as careful as possible not to step on any of the possessions that are strewed throughout the room in separate piles…’donate, throw away, and undecided’. I plan to take the things she wants to donate and throw away and never do what I tell her I’m going to do with them, of course. Everything, even his notebooks full of shit, will be auctioned off. Anyhow…

I tread lightly toward the closet door, close the padlock as silently as I can, and wait until a strong, violent wind blows in through the open window, and at its strongest point I slam the closet door shut, figuring the more force the easier it would be to believe it was the wind, and not me. Once it slams shut I scamper out of the room, but not far enough away to miss all the frantic screams that are about to be coming from the closet. No, the entire point is that I will be able to listen and enjoy every single horrific scream that comes from her mouth when she realises that her ultimate fear has come true once again, and perhaps that 40 years of work in therapy are about to be undone. 

It takes about a minute and a half of her trying in vain to jiggle the door open with a speed so frantic I can tell that she’s already fallen into pieces before she starts to bang on it. Her banging grows faster and more manic, and she starts to scream my name: “ROSEMARY! Rosemary, I’m stuck in here. Please...please…”

When I don’t come to get her out, her pleading fades and I hear her begin to hyperventilate...breaths that grow faster, more violent and more shallow as every moment ticks by. She must be shaking with fear. She must be in crisis mode right now, unsure that she’ll ever get let out...just like those five long, painful, horrifying and traumatic days all those years ago when she was trapped by my brother in their supply closet amongst all the cleaning products that should have poisoned her until she fell to her death. 

She continues to bang on the door with a hysterical urgency. Not only am I relishing every second of every scream and banging of fists against the wooden door that I hear, but I’m laughing at it. She’s so stupid. She really thinks that no one will ever open the door, doesn’t she? Yes, I’m certain she does. I’m certain that she’s such a stupid cunt that she thinks she’ll die in there. Good. I could let her rot in there, couldn’t I? I could easily say I had left the house without her knowledge and didn’t realise she was stuck in there when her body was inevitably discovered. It would be so easy just to leave her here so she could die alone and terrified, but unfortunately, I think that my first kill will be my only one, as I don’t want to be made responsible for anything. It would be far too easy to trace it to me as I was the last person there and my fingerprints would be found on the door. Couldn’t that be a mere coincidence, though? Would that evidence even be admissible in court? Even so...I don’t want the drama nor the stress of a court case where I’m the defendant rather than the claimant. That’s the last thing I need in my life right now, especially when the only happiness I can muster comes from torturing her. If I had more in my life to be happy about, perhaps I would be willing to hire Bernard to get me off for murder, and that would be that, but what would happen to Cinnamon if I were arrested? Ian and Jill are in the process of moving to Southampton (and besides, Jill is a horrid person who hates my little baby), and as I said before...I have no friends. Cinnamon is all I have. I cannot leave her behind or see her go to a shelter to die. No, I don’t think I’ll leave May to die, but I’m not letting her out any time soon.

For the meantime I’m enjoying her suffering far too much to intervene and let it end. I am sucking in so much joy from this that I’m tempted to let it go on for hours, but no, I think an hour is long enough. That, along with striking the fear of god into Cora Harlow when I called my brother by his real name in front of her, will keep me entertained for years on their own. More than one hour simply isn’t necessary for me, although the idea of her suffering continuing for an inordinate amount of time brings me more joy than the reality of listening to her screams and frantic banging. I’ll just sit and enjoy this now, and in an hour I’ll give you an update. You aren’t to bother me until then,as I need to suck all the joy I can out of this, as I need to concentrate in order to fully appreciate the experience. 

1 HOUR LATER

I take a deep breath, preparing myself to slip on my sweet old lady mask and do my best at feigning worry. Once it’s securely on I rush toward the closet door wearing an illusion of a face that perhaps she will never see through, but even if she does see through it I don’t much care. It’s easy enough to play innocent, as I’ve been doing my entire life...from the times I drowned Roger’s cats when we were children and blamed it on the neighbour boy, to the times I stole his things and made him feel more loony than he already was...to the time that I summoned fake tears when I ‘found’ my husband dead on the floor and called the authorities to come take his stiff, cold body away … I left him there for hours to fester. I’ve gone on wearing the mask of harmless old nan for many years now, even as a young child I was always old...that now I’ve got it down to a science, and no one sees through it except for perhaps May, but it’s possible that I’ll be able to convince her now, if unlikely. But as I said, it’s water off a duck if she can tell I’m being insincere. What’s she going to do about it, anyway?

I rush to open the door, fiddling with the key until the padlock pops open, and I find her curled up on the floor of the bedroom closet with papers and clothing everywhere that she must have thrown about in a frenzy. She’s shaking as panic-stricken and distraught cries and hyperventilating breaths are coming out of her like ooze, clutching her knees against her chest lying on her side. I look down at her with abject disgust before she looks up at me: pathetic. She’s absolutely pathetic, crying on the floor like a toddler like that over a closet door closing on her. What a pathetic, stupid, immature, spoiled little brat she is. I’m careful to switch my demeanour to one of sympathetic remorse, however, as I kneel down beside her and shake her. 

“May, it’s alright. I’ve opened the door and you can come out. I’m so sorry, I was in the sitting room downstairs listening to music in my headphones and doing some sorting, and I didn’t hear the door slam. Come now, stand up and come on out and we’ll get you some tea to settle you.” 

She looks up at me as I kneel next to her with my hand still on her shoulder, and she rushes to stand up, brushing herself off, and storms out of the room after throwing me one more disgusted and vile glare that I can feel penetrating my soul with its hot, passionate anger and hatred. She slams the bedroom door and flies down the stairs, and I hear her rustling for her keys. When she’s found them I hear her rush out the door, slamming it on her way out. Her car starts and she drives away, going who knows where. Perhaps she’ll just take a drive to settle herself.

Either she bought my act, or she didn’t, but I don’t care. I’ve derived all the joy of retribution that I need to relish in her suffering. 

And all of my deeds will continue to go unpunished, as no one is clever enough to see under my mask. The only person who knows who I truly am underneath all the layers I wear to be able to garner respect and attention in society is my son, and he would never, ever give me up.


	87. EPILOGUE - Maisie - Bar Harbor, Maine - May 2007 - Maisie and David's New House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie and David finally reunite in the home they bought together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is your second epilogue - I hope you like it!
> 
> And yes, this house exists if you want to look it up and see what it looks like lol

41 NW Cove Road in Bar Harbor, Maine.

That would be the address of the four bedroom two level house David and I split down the middle, and we got it for a steal. It’s not that it was a fixer upper by any means, but it needed some light work, and the previous owner was transferred to another city and needed to move quickly. Quickly was what we were aiming for anyway, as we had been itching for months to be together again after our reunion in London. Conversations on the phone grow stale pretty quickly when you want to be with someone so much you can taste it, after all, and I missed his touch and his kiss so bad after just a day and a half of being together that I was about ready to explode if I didn’t see him soon. He felt the same, and so we both got right on the hunt for a house. We knew it was fast, we knew it was risky and we knew it was impulsive...but neither of us cared. We both made our peace with our acting irresponsibly back in the beginning.

Here’s how things ended up working out: I flew back here to Maine in November of last year after putting a total and complete stop to the auction Rosemary wanted to have, much to her chagrin and despite her making several attempts to persuade me that it was a good idea. My attorney back here issued a cease and desist letter to Rosemary’s lawyer stating that Roger Barrett’s wife did not consent to any auction of her husband’s, and thus her own, legal possessions. As I figured she would, Rosemary wilted like an overwatered flower into the soil, and I haven’t heard hide nor hair of her since. Whatever she’s doing I hope she’s happy without any of the money she wanted so badly, and I hope that Jill and Ian are happy that they’ve got a nest egg for Emily...because in the end, that’s the thing that matters the most.

When I got home David and I started texting and emailing one another to be able to talk every day, but we’ve snuck a few phone calls here and there, too. I don’t think I’ve gone a day without speaking to him since he texted me after I landed in Portland to ask if I’d gotten home. From there we started house hunting as I said, sending links to one another and calling and discussing what we liked and didn’t like about a house, and one day I got an email from David with a link. I opened it, and I was staring at this beautiful little cottage house with pale brown shingles with pine green windows and two front steps leading to an entranceway near the front door. It was so us, nestled away in the woods with a long wooded path down to a private beach and a full waterfront house length deck. Even only having looked at the outside I fell in love with it, and I knew it was ours so I texted David, and he called me a few minutes later...and we both looked at the inside at the same time after we discovered we both had the same feeling without having seen the inside. Needless to say when we looked at the inside together we fell in love with every room, too, and that was that. It was ours. With three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a living room, an eat-in kitchen, a dining room, and room for my library/office and David’s studio/man cave in the basement...it’s perfect. I’d love to tell you every detail about every room, but I’m too content right now, and it would just be a waste of time. I’m sure there will be another time to talk about all of that (and believe me, I really, really want to...I love this house!)

So we went through all the business of buying the house, and I came to check it out. I ordered furniture and had it put in, and I came and decorated a few times with my friends that I live with (I’ll still go live with them every once in awhile, they’ll let me keep my bedroom and I’ll still give them rent every month. After all, David will have to go back to Sussex sometimes...). David, however, hadn’t been here yet before yesterday afternoon. He had no idea how I decorated it or anything. I didn’t even send him any pictures of how it turned out because I wanted him to be completely surprised (he did tell me to go crazy with it, didn’t he? I think I remember him telling me that.) And of course, he was surprised, but also not surprised…he knows when he tells me to do whatever I want with a house I will do exactly that. He loved everything about it, and he was just happy that I left his ‘man cave’ alone for him to do what he wants with it, but I never forgot the time that I reorganized and redecorated his studio for him in the late 70s, and he got so pissed off that he walked out and went for a drive. So I knew better this time. 

You wouldn’t believe what happened when I pulled into the driveway and saw him sitting in his car. I saw him before he saw me, and I almost jumped out the door and flew toward his. I was so excited I was robbed of my breath. As soon as I stood up and before I could even close the car door, David’s eyes met mine immediately, and I knew that it was the same force that drew us to one another on the night of the service just like it always was: that twin energy that we share...the connection that we’ve had since the day that I fell into his arms from off the ladder. His face erupted into a huge, bright smile, and I know mine did, too...and I ran at him and almost knocked him down when I wrapped him in a hug. We laughed so hard, he wrapped me tightly in his arms, and then he kissed me, and I’m not sure we’ve really stopped kissing for more than a few minutes since. We walked into the house together, and he carried me over the threshold like a bride, but I fought the whole way. I don’t like when men try to pick me up because it makes me feel insecure, but he didn’t even struggle to lift me. Must be moving all that gig equipment. 

We walked through the house to marvel at and take pictures of every single room, and waited until we saw the entire thing (and he gushed over how I decorated and set up everything) before we took the wooden stairs down the hill through the trees in our backyard and sat on the rocky beach that’s just for us. We let the gentle waves lap at our feet...the water is too cold for swimming still...and we walked back up to the house arm in arm and then we figured we’d waited long enough: we fucked in the living room on the couch, we fucked on the washing machine in the laundry room right off of the kitchen, we fucked on the kitchen table and in our bed and in the guest bedrooms, and late last night we took it to the back deck and fell asleep on a pile of blankets, and I just woke up to the sunrise spilling over the tan white English walnut wood and lighting up the green wooden picnic table and benches while the salty smell of the ocean lingers all around us. The sunlight filters in through the small forest of Eastern white pines that line the perimeter of our backyard, and lights up everything around us with an iridescent orange glow. It’s beautiful. It’s everything we wanted when we were young but never got to have. We always talked about a cute little cottage right on the water just like this one, and I am still breathless knowing that even after being apart for so many years we got exactly what we wanted. 

I’m snuggled in his arms, and he’s still passed out next to me: the first restful sleep he’s had in months, he said. I can imagine him starting to drool, that’s how deeply he’s sleeping, and I run my hand over his cheek while staring into his peaceful, sleeping face. I’m overwhelmed with love, and longing...even when he’s lying next to me I long for anything he could possibly give me. His body is warm, and his broad, strong chest makes the best pillow that I’ve slept on since 1986 when I left him. I trail my hand over his bare chest that’s glowing in the early morning light and move to kiss his cheek, hoping I don’t wake him up. The smell of his cologne still kind of floats around his body, and I revel in it, cuddling closer to him in disbelief that he is really here. This is real. 

This is bliss.

I’m not dreaming about being with David anymore: I’m with him. Nothing could ruin this moment, and nothing will ever come between us again. Even though we have to sneak around in order to be together, I don’t mind, because I’ve got my own life here and I can do more than enough to keep myself occupied while he’s in England...and as for Kim, I don’t know. I feel uncomfortable with it, but I guess I just don’t feel guilty enough to stop myself or to tell him no. What makes me able to do this, I think, is the knowledge that...to be very, very blunt...his vows aren’t my problem. It isn’t my responsibility to be faithful to his wife, and I don’t think he’s ever been faithful anyway. Do I think that he should have never married her if he couldn’t get over me just like I never married until I married Syd, who understood that I also loved David? Yeah, I do, and I’ve told him as much. He knows it. The right thing to do would be to leave her, but to be honest he’s really scared to admit everything and finally do so. I’m not going to pressure him. Whatever we have we have. As long as we’re together it doesn’t matter.

Being with David...falling asleep together this way after hours and hours of christening the entire house with our lovemaking...waking up in the morning enveloped in one another, making breakfast together, walking down to the beach...that’s all either of us have ever, ever needed and have spent the past 20 years dreaming about, and now it’s real. I don’t know how often we’ll be able to do this, or for how long each time, but I don’t care. 

All that matters is that we’re here now together, and that we can share in our love, and nothing can take that away.


	88. Roger - New York City - May 2007 - Roger's New York Penthouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In our last epilogue, Roger, who has been putting himself through hell for months, is given an opportunity from David that he can't refuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I just wanted to discuss Vol 3 with you guys.
> 
> Life has gotten a little difficult dealing with the pandemic and my son being home from school since March, the stuff going on in America right now, etc so I'm still working on Vol 3 and I will still put it up for you, but with two bonus scenes we are gonna be ready to start reading Vol 3 in 3 weeks. I want to be able to drop 4 chapters for you when I upload the first time, but depending on how much I have written by then I may take a two week or so hiatus so I can make sure I'm giving you more than one chapter a week. I can tell by how the view count goes up over 30 every few weeks that a bunch of you prefer to read a few at once instead of one, and I get that, but I also wanna make sure I have enough material written for you that I can drop at least two a week. So if I have enough written in the next few weeks that I can safely give you guys the first four chapters in one shot I'll do that. The fic will be finished though you have my word!

It’s been quite a difficult eight months since I saw Maisie with David at the memorial service and graciously offered them to use my hotel room for David to enjoy the body that only I should ever be allowed to enjoy out of the kindness of my heart (as well as out of obligation to Syd). Neither of them have even bothered to make any contact to thank me since, and while I’m only angry about that on a superficial level, it’s everything else about it that I’m torn apart about.

I have a sneaking suspicion that they’ve continued to see one another; I felt it when I watched them avoid throwing themselves at one another for all of two seconds, and every single moment of that encounter pierced my body like stone arrowheads. If only she knew how I craved her. If I had gotten to her first, do you think I could have taken a hold of her that way and made her submit to me the way David did? 

It’s entirely possible they’re even together right now on this sunny, cool, early May afternoon...or whatever time it is wherever they are ... but on any given afternoon like this, in bed together...perhaps not having gotten out of bed at all yet, or perhaps returned to bed with their breakfast and coffee on matching trays, sitting beside one another with the television on, MSNBC or whatever she watches humming softly in the distance as they find something to laugh over. Maybe they’re sitting outside together sharing the sunlight while being completely absorbed in one another...and I do not cross either of their minds, yet my mind is consumed with thoughts of them. I suspect they’ve jumped at the chance to throw caution (and their dignity and self-respect...but I am not above doing the same) to the wind and make up for lost time, and to ensure that they’d never repeat the mistake. (And all the while, by the way, David is allowed to maintain his illusion of a happy marriage and family for his own convenience and no one else’s) I’d be willing to bet my life on it, in fact. No one’s called me or written to me, so I haven’t heard much of anything, but I know them. Once they rediscovered the taste of their special and rare sort of true love they likely decided that they would never again allow themselves to stop consuming it. Poor Kim, though. I know she’s a perceptive one...if she doesn’t realise it now, she’ll figure it out sooner or later, and then, well, the curtain will be pulled back on them, and they’ll have to face the music. Hopefully, in the end, this will lead to them breaking up. Hopefully, if I were to play my cards right in such a scenario, their breaking up will lead her back to where she’s always belonged: my arms. My arms were meant to be the only home she ever knew, but perhaps to be the final home she ever knew would taste just as sweet.

I would like to be able to tell you that in the past eight months I’ve learned to deal with my emotions about the entire matter better, but I’d be lying if I said that, and while I’d be likely to lie to anyone else about this I see no reason to lie to you. After all, in all these years you’ve not betrayed me yet. So I’ll tell you the truth:

I’ve not learned to deal with this any better. In fact, I find I’m dealing with it worse since September, and I was not dealing with it well before then either, as you likely remember. What has made it just the least bit easier is that I’ve stopped sending Anna away so much, preferring instead to let her stay here and all but completely avoid her, and though I know she’s noticed she hasn’t said anything, either. It’s like we’re two complete strangers sharing a house now. When we first met I was truly convinced that I loved her more than any of the other two women I married. I was convinced I’d finally found the one, and as I had stuffed Maisie down into the depths of my consciousness, it made a lot of sense to me that I never found the one before Anna. But that’s all over now. Now, Anna is just another woman taking up space in my place of residence, and I hate it, as that’s how I’ve always viewed the women in my life except for Maisie. I hate it because she deserves so much better, but I cannot find it in myself to give any better to her. The upside of having her here is that the house is no longer a disaster, and I keep a more normal schedule to attempt to ward off her interrogations about what’s wrong with me. That doesn’t mean it’s been at all easy, but I find that if I am forced to not stay up all night long watching television I’m able to fake it until I finally fall asleep. I’m not less depressed...I’ve only learned to hide it better because I’ve had to. It’s awful when she catches me in the depths of my sadness and attempts to draw it all out of me, for every lie to her feels like poison on my lips. But still, I love her, and I don’t want to let her go yet...even though I’m assuming that I probably should. Hopefully, these feelings will pass, and one day I can go back to feeling as in love with her as I was when we met. She is, after all, an amazing woman who deserves to be given the entire world, but that isn’t what I’m giving her and it hasn’t been what I’ve given her for nearly a year now that I’ve had all my memories come up bubbling out of me like vomit.

As I had been saying before I got off on a tangent, it’s a sunny but cool spring afternoon. Anna’s doing something in the house, maybe cleaning, maybe something else. I’m not sure. I’ve barely spoken to her today, and it didn’t go unnoticed on her part. I think she’s used to it at this point, and she’s taken the opinion that I’m only going through a depression and thus that she shouldn’t interfere too much. In the past I’ve come out of my depressions on my own because they weren’t nearly this deep.

I’ve taken to sitting out on the balcony during the afternoons lately, trying to wash away my sorrows with sunlight, but it barely works, and if it does it never works for long. I suppose the view is nice: the balcony is protected by a guardrail made of tempered glass, and I can see out over the entire city. Something about feeling so insignificant next to the vastness of the urban sprawl is comforting; it makes me feel as if maybe my problems aren’t all that important in the grand scheme of things. I lean back in my chaise that sits right beside Anna’s. This the furniture we set up to gaze out over the city just like this together when we moved in here a few years ago. I used to love to sit out here with her in the evenings while drinking some wine, smoking some weed, and talking while gazing out over the skyline, but not anymore. 

Both pieces are polished wood with white cushions that tie on. The cushions are not the most comfortable, admittedly, but they more than do for us. I swear, I’ve been sitting so long on mine lately that I’ve started to leave an imprint. Now you can see how much time I spend sitting here wallowing in my bad feelings lately. 

The only thing that brings me a bit of comfort is swapping David out for myself and placing myself in these fantasies I have about what they may be doing together right now. In my mind...instead of David lying next to her in bed right now it’s me, and I’m not only sitting next to her ...no, I’ve already taken the opportunity to hold her close to me and stroke her hair, her head nestled snugly against my chest. I’m reading the newspaper while she’s cuddled into me, and she’s lulled back into a deep slumber, completely at peace in the protective barrier my arms place around her. It’s a quiet, sunny, beautiful morning with the television humming, and the spring birds are singing outside the open window. The room smells like our cups of coffee simmering on the night stands, although hers is getting cold, and I pull the comforter up over her bare shoulder as a cool breeze drifts in through the window screen. We made love the night before and fell asleep in an exhausted, sweaty heap after we had spent ourselves. It’s a perfect lazy afternoon.

I dwell on this for a fair bit until my daydreaming is interrupted by my cell phone ringing. 

Speak of the fucking devil. It’s David.

“Hello,” I sneer at him, caring not for a single second about how I may come off to him. He can’t even let me have my fantasies; he feels compelled to steal those away from me as well.

“Roger, it’s David,” he says, and it seems to me as if he wants to talk to me about as much as I want to talk to him, so for him to call it could only be business, or someone’s died.

“I’m aware. It’s on my caller ID,” I taunt.

David pauses before he answers me. It seems as if minutes are going by before he answers. I can imagine him sitting alone silently counting to 10 to avoid screaming at me.

“Right, then,” he presses on. “I’m calling because I was offered a chance for us to play the Live 8 benefit concert in Hyde Park in two months. Would you be interested? It’s one gig, and it’s for a rather good cause, so the rest of us would like to do it.” 

“So you’ve called me last, then,” I can’t help but moan.

He should have called me before he called either of them.

“Well, Roger, quite frankly, we’d all be willing to do it without you, but we’d all very much like for you to be there.”

“Wow, David, don’t you have a very kind and gentle approach.”

“That’s rich coming from you, Roger. Anyhow, I’m not here to argue with you. I’ve got much better things to be doing, as I bet you do as well, so let’s stick to the topic at hand. Would you be interested in doing this gig with us? The fans would go crazy. We’d like for you to do it.” 

I mull it over for a second. I don’t want to give him an answer before I’ve thought about it. 

What would you do?

He’s right, the fans would love it. People would go insane for that...we’d be able to sell them a ton of tickets. It would be great to play with the old band again, no matter our personal feelings toward each other...and there’s a chance he may bring Maisie with him. I can see no reasons not to do it, in fact. There doesn’t seem to be any risk, only rewards.

“I’ll do it,” I respond. 

“Glad to hear it then. I don’t think we’ll need too much time to rehearse, but would you meet the guys and I at Abbey Road in the middle of June? The concert is in mid July.” 

“I could do that,” I affirm. 

“Good. Well, that’s about everything I’ve got to say for now. I figured we’ll catch up a bit when we see one another at the studio.”

“Right,” I agree, and wait for him to say something else, but after a few moments I can’t help myself any longer: “Would you be bringing Kim with you to the concert, then?”

“Not likely,” he says after another slight pause. “She watches some of the grandchildren a few times a week now, and couldn’t be torn away.” 

“So you’ll be coming alone?”

“....” The silence is painfully uncomfortable. “No,” he lets drip from his mouth in slow motion. “But that’s none of your concern, is it?”

“I only…”

“I know what you’re trying to ask me. And I’m not going to tell you a thing because it isn’t your business. I’ll let you know what day and time the rest of us plan on meeting in a few days or so. Goodbye, Roger,” he says, and he doesn’t waste a moment waiting for me to say goodbye before he hangs up on me.

He’ll bring her, I know it, and I won’t have a choice but to do something about it.  
I cannot live like this anymore. I will not do this to myself again. For all those years I loved her from so far away, suffering as I watched her love another, but I will not do it to myself again. I’ll have to figure something else out.


	89. BONUS SCENE: Roger - July 1971 - On the Road to Pompeii, Italy - The Van

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger struggles when Maisie unknowingly puts him in an agonizing position.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this scene and the one from next week are scenes that will not be making it into the novels when they're all done. These scenes are exclusively for you guys for being so supportive and sticking with this long ass story so long as many of you have. I wanted and planned to include a Pompeii story arc in this one, but it got so long on its own, and I didn't think removing the Boston arc in favor of this made sense for the overall narrative. Next week is your second bonus scene, and the final chapter of volume 2 (for real this time!)
> 
> Also please don't ever think that there is anything you can't tell me or let me know through comments. I LOVE to hear from you and your support keeps me going!

_Agony._

_That’s all I can think of to describe the horror that’s befallen me._

_We got a call from our manager quite a number of months ago. Somebody had gone to the Roman amphitheatre in Pompeii and immediately thought of us, asked us to play there and offered us a substantial amount of money to film the entire thing and release it in theaters. There was no question about it for me, and I answered on their behalf. I figured they wouldn’t mind. So far, no one’s complained. I think the other three would have drudged around and dragged their asses about it if I had consulted them about it at all, and so I made an executive decision. I’m damn proud of it, too. This is going to really put us on the map, and with the next album being the one I’m most proud of, I’d like the extra exposure._

_Anyhow, it’s been nice allowing myself to feel something other than pain and despair for the past two minutes, so thank you for listening to me do that, but I know that’s not why you’re here._

_You’re here to know what’s got me so torn apart from the inside out. Well, of course, I’ll tell you. This is almost on par with the time that Maisie bathed me when we were in France. It’s not quite as humiliating, but it is just as heartbreaking._

_We’ve been on the road to Pompeii for hours now. I don’t even know how long we’ve been driving. We’ve taken stops for the toilet, of course, but we don’t want to spring for hotels and agreed to just take shifts driving instead of stopping for the night. Each shift lasts four hours, as there are four men, and Maisie agreed to take one shift in the morning...she grew weary of being squished between David and I in the third row of seats. That was torture enough, by the way, having her pushed right up against my body like that. I’ve fought off two or three very stubborn erections all day, and I could hardly resist the urge to slip my arms around her body and hold her close to me as it was. I grimaced, swore under my breath, and fought back tears throughout the day, often soothing myself with my ring in order to avoid a full scale meltdown that would’ve given it all away, and beyond that scare her._

_As I said, that was torture enough, but then Nick’s shift ended, and David’s shift began._

_I’m seated on Maisie’s left side, and David’s on her right. She fell asleep next to him about an hour ago with her head leaning on his shoulder. I was so jealous. I was so, so jealous. I was so fucking angry I could have strangled him when she fell asleep nestled ino him like that. But somehow, fortune turned around, and when he stood up and lightly pushed her to sit up straight...and she never woke up...she just fell right over onto my shoulder as David scooted out of the row and up front to the driver’s seat. It was like magic...it was a miracle. I couldn’t have asked for better fortune. Made me think for a quick moment that perhaps there could be a God after all when she fell asleep on me like that. All of a sudden her head was resting on my shoulder, her cheek pushed up against the very top of my chest and her hair falling over her face. I choked._

_I choked when I felt her there, and then again when I looked down out of the corner of my eye and everything I desired and wished for just moments before that had suddenly come to me for no apparent reason. It was a stroke of dumb fucking luck, and she’s here right next to me right now. It doesn’t matter how crammed the bloody van is, or how much it stinks like men in here, or that I’ve been sitting here for eight hours now stuck next to this girl that I’m desperately, disgustingly in love with, or that there’s ugly white curtains on the windows. It doesn’t matter now because she’s here...she’s right up against me, slumbering with her head on my shoulder._

_It’s real, it’s happening._

_I’ve spent two years now (two years ago being the last time we touched, of course) longing every day and every night for one innocent, accidental touch like this, willing to accept even the most insignificant brush of hands in passing to satisfy my craving. And that moment never came before now. It’s much more than I was ever expecting to be a reality, despite what I may dream of, as I think the idea of falling asleep on me would nauseate her...but she doesn’t know and could not imagine what this means to me._

_If she woke up right now she’d be horrified to find our bodies touching, wouldn’t she? She’d be disgusted to wake up cuddled against me, of all people, and I think you know that. I can only imagine how she’d recoil, how she’d shoot up like an arrow just to get away from me...maybe she’d even move to the other end so as not to be near me._

_But she doesn’t know that every moment that ticks by where she’s so close is like a breath of Heaven to me, and she likely does not care that I’ve dreamt of something just like this for years. She wouldn’t even care to listen for one second if I were to try to whisper it all in her ear right now, and I am tempted, but I know better._

_It’s just getting more difficult by the second to keep my hands to myself as I sit here and crane my neck to look down at her sleeping face. I’ve wanted this for such a long time, and it’s taking everything in me not to reach my hand up and twist one of her spirals around my index finger the way I used to when she had just moved in and I used to lie next to her in bed and pretend that I wasn’t feeling anything at all. It’s taking every ounce of willpower that I’ve got not to take her cheek in the palm of my hand and let its warmth come over me like a blanket. I’m not sure if this is a fight I can win because I think if I’m not physically holding down one hand with the other, or deliberately sitting on my hand, I may not be able to resist. It’s just that she’s right here, and she’s fast asleep, and I could reach out and touch her without getting caught._

_Should I do it?_

_Should I take my chances and graze her soft cheek with my fingertips...run my fingers over her lips...get my hands tangled in her hair? Should I make myself familiar with every inch of soft skin that I can get my hands on? I think I could even reach her arm or her shoulder...even her breasts...but Rick and Jane are right in front of us, and I think that she might wake up from that, so maybe not. But her face and her hair, maybe she’d stay asleep._

_What if she did wake up, though? What do you think she would do? Would she back away and keep it to herself, or would she rush right to the front of the van where David’s driving and tell him everything? He’d leave the band over that, I just know it, and then we’d be out a guitarist, and I’d be ashamed, and my secret would be out to everyone...as I am certain that David would pull the van over, come back here, pull me out of the seat and out of the van onto the side of the road...and beat me senseless. I’m so sure that he’d beat the life out of me, in fact...maybe even leave me in a heap on the side of the road to rot or to find my own way home...that I’m able to resist touching her for just a few more excruciating minutes, but I’m still very aware that to resist it for the entire four hours that he’ll be driving will be so difficult that I am almost expecting to take the risk and to do it anyway at some point. If I don’t do it soon, though, she’s likely to wake up, and as I said that would be the worst possible outcome._

_I’ll have to try and wait. I’ll have to try and stick it out and not touch her. It’s the best decision to make. But still...she’s right here. She’s so close. I can feel her warmth against me; I’m keenly aware of the feeling of her locks of hair brushing against my arm and her cheek nestled in next to my chest, and it’s got me in pure agony…_

_I fear every day that she will never be mine, and I live with that pain. Yet here she is… vulnerable, peaceful, expecting no harm, and without knowing that it’s my protection she’s relying on, and I’m supposed to resist touching her. I’ll see what I can do. I hope I can do it, but I have my doubts._

_It’s been an hour since you and I last spoke, which means it’s been two hours since David took the wheel and Maisie’s been teasing and terrorising me with her unknowing, unintentional touch that she’d never give me if she had the choice. I’ve been sitting here with her head resting against me for two hours, and I’ve done nothing about it, but while I’ve tried to sleep myself, even leaning my head on top of hers in an attempt to make a touch look like it was an accident, I’ve had no success. The longing and the agony keep me awake, desperate to sleep as I’ve not slept a wink all night, and there is no relief for me. There may not be a moment of relief unless I act on this craving that I can’t shake._

_And so that’s when I make the decision. Rick and Jane are asleep, so there’s no risk of them catching me, and with David safely out of the way and Maisie still passed out in a deep sleep I can see no reason not to take the risk. I’ve spent the past few hours debating whether or not I should do this, but if I don’t it will bother me perhaps for the rest of my life. When I have chances with her I need to take them._

_I reach my hand up and graze the apple of her cheek with my fingertips, and slide my palm up to cup it, savouring every touch, closing my eyes and letting my hand linger upon her face as I lean my head down and take in the smell of the cream and the spray she uses on her hair to give it shape and volume and to keep it soft and healthy. The last time we were this close was when we danced at the party, and I wasn’t even allowed to remember that joyous moment, except for the last few seconds of the kiss we shared, and that was when I ran away. So her touch and her smell is so new to me after dreaming obsessively of it for so long, and that’s when I move my hand from her cheek to her lips._

_Her plump, full lips are so soft and so perfect, and it stings...it physically hurts me inside that I can’t kiss them, that I can’t wake her up, grab her waist and press my lips to hers and kiss her until she can’t take anymore. With every touch of my fingertips on her lips...exploring them, cherishing them, loving them...another small shard breaks off of my heart and falls away. What if I woke her up, and she caught me, and instead of breaking away and running from me...and ratting me out to David...she swooned when she felt my hands on her lips and her body, and she submitted to every one of my kisses? What if as soon as our lips touched she could feel how much I loved her? Would she melt in my arms, and let me take her away to have her to myself forever?_

_That’s only a fantasy, though. It’s just one more fantasy to add to my extensive list of fantasies that keep me from going insane with desire...or do they exacerbate it? I don’t know, and I don’t care to find out, because my fantasies of her are my only comfort._

_“I love you, Maisie,” I dare to whisper in her ear with every ounce of vulnerable, loving emotion I can muster. She doesn’t wake up, thank god, and I repeat: “I love you. I love you more than I can tell you in words.”_

_I take a hold of a lock of hair, and I bring it to my face to run it across my lips and pull it under my nose to take a long whiff of it before I have to give this up and only ever get a chance like this somewhere in the distant future...if I ever get a chance like this again. The herbal, intense smell of her hair brings me comfort; it reminds me of better times. It reminds me of lying close to her, of taking baths and showers with her, of kissing and holding her...and of being bathed by her in France. It reminds me of everything that has been forbidden to me._

_But perhaps...perhaps it will not be forbidden forever._


	90. BONUS SCENE: David - July, 1971 - Pompeii, Italy - The Hotel Forum Pompeii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at the end of volume 2! It's certainly been a ride for me, and I hope for you too. Thank you so much for your support and love and I hope you'll follow along with me when I start to put up volume 3. 
> 
> I've decided that I'm going to take a week's hiatus to try and make sure I can get you four chapters when I'm ready to post. As I said a few weeks ago, Volume 3 so far has been slow going because of some personal reasons, but I'm still plugging away at it. That means that your first four chapters of Volume 3 will not drop next Monday, but the Monday after which is February 8. I know it'll suck for those of you who read every week, but I want to make sure you have enough to get really good and into it.
> 
> UPDATE: I've been wondering why my view count hasn't been what it was, and it turns out upon inspection I didn't publish every chapter I've uploaded, and a few were saved as drafts only! So please take a look at chapters 85, 88, and 89 also if you haven't already. My apologies, I didn't even realize until now 😅😅😅

_This concert was something else. I’ve never done anything like it before, and may not ever again. A concert with no audience. At first it was a little nerve-wracking, but I got into it after awhile. Pompeii gets right hot during the day, you know, and so I did quite a bit of playing with my shirt and my shoes off. I’m sure the fans won’t mind, and I know for a fact that my girlfriend didn’t mind, but she’s in the shower right now (making me wait, that minx)._

_When I was finished with my shift at the wheel this morning, I snuck back through the rows of seats to wake Maisie up and send her up for her own shift, and I was mortified by what I found. Maisie had fallen over onto Roger’s shoulder, and he had taken the opportunity to lay his head down on top of hers. I punched his arm, and he awoke with a terrified start. He stared into my eyes, pleading with me like he thought I was gonna kill him, and I thought about it for a few seconds. Instead, I held my arms out to the sides, signalling to him that I wanted to know exactly what the fuck he was doing, and he stayed quiet for a few minutes like he was trying to figure out exactly what to say to avoid an argument while still maintaining his innocence, which I knew he would do, as he has a way of slithering his way out of any accusation, even (and especially) when it’s warranted._

_After stammering and sweating for what felt like much longer than was necessary, Roger would conveniently say that this was ‘an accident’, and he had no recollection of leaning his head on top of Maisie’s while she slept...but I know better, and so do you. One would know Roger Waters is lying by the fact that his mouth is moving. So I shook Maisie awake. I didn’t bother to move her head, because I was so fucking pissed off to catch Roger doing what he was doing that I wanted him to be humiliated. I woke her up and let him watch with horror as she realised exactly what had happened, blushed four different shades of red, shot up out of her seat and scurried off toward the driver’s seat to take her shift. I wish I had a video camera to record the way that all of the air went out of him. He looked so peaceful while he slept with her like that, but with one move I robbed him of any peace he could have had for the rest of the day. And I’d do it again if I got the chance, because I’m so fucking mad at him for signing us up for this without speaking to us about it first that I’m starting to fantasise sometimes about leaving the band._

_But enough of that for now._

_She’s been in there for quite a bit, hasn’t she?_

_It’s like she knows I’ve been dreaming about getting in between her thighs all day, and she's torturing me on purpose. I got lost staring at her a few times when we were in the middle of playing, looking at her in that dark blue cable knit sweater that clung to her breasts just the way it should, those tight wide leg bell bottom jeans, and her hair tied back in that shiny red ribbon I bought for her. When she stood up to go sit next to Jane for a minute I lost my mind as soon as I caught a glimpse of that ass, and I winked at her when she turned back to me. She knows how much I’m craving her right now, and she’s teasing me on purpose. I’m not surprised, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna let her get away with it._

_Nah, not tonight. I’m on an emotional high from how great that gig ended up going, even though I’m real angry with Roger for forcing it upon us. I know Maisie is as horny as I am, too, because she stopped me when we were walking through the hallway to our hotel room and put me against the wall. She was kissing me deeply and letting her hands wander over my thighs after she checked to see if we were alone. I almost threw her on the ground and took her right there. My cock was throbbing and I wasn’t sure how long I was gonna be able to wait, and then as soon as we got into the room I went to grab her, but she insisted that she needed a shower first. After all, we were out in the hot sun all day. She winked at me, grabbed her pyjamas, walked toward the bathroom and shut the door...but I didn’t hear it lock. So I’m going right in, I’m gonna grab her, and I don’t care how wet she is…I’m throwing her down on this bed and going right for that pussy._

_I get up off the bed with its weird dull orange bedspread and paneled headboard, I march toward the bathroom, opening the white door with its gold handle, and I storm toward the shower where I can see through the glass door that she’s rinsing something out of her hair. I smell that it’s her creme rinse and so I know she’s about done. I give her a second … she doesn’t know I’m here, and I have clothes to get off, anyway … and then I slide the door open. She smiles when she looks at me, but her smile turns to surprise when she sees the way I’m looking at her. I can feel it, too… even without seeing my own face I can tell there’s lust in my eyes. I pick up her wet, slippery body, and sling her over my shoulder with one arm and grip her ass and thighs with my other hand. Her skin is moist, plump and warm having just been pulled out of the shower, and she giggles as her hair drips down my back and onto the floor. She plays at kicking her legs and trying to fight me, but she’s laughing so I know she doesn’t mean it, and when I get to the bed I toss her down on it._

_“I think you deserve a reward for having to sleep on Roger this morning,” I growl in her ear as I reach for the light switch and turn it off, making all the candles I lit (there’s a nice candle shop in the hotel, actually, very weird, but a lot of people honeymoon here) give the darkened room an inviting, alluring glow that lights up her skin that’s wet with droplets of warm water._

_“Oh, I do? What about you?,” she whispers in my ear with a purr._

_“Don’t worry, baby, when I’m done eating this pussy I’m gonna make love to you until we both cum,” I respond as I let my hand slide down over her rounded belly pouch and spread her pussy lips until I feel her throbbing clit beneath my fingers._

_Her body tenses up and she digs her nails into my shoulder as I start to press her little button, and the longer I go at her, switching from pressing to circles, the more she begins to tense and then relax. Then she starts to shiver until her body is jerking around and twisting up the bedding, and I switch from rubbing her clit to sliding my hands up her body, grabbing a hold of her sexy little tummy as I go. She moans when my hand reaches her breast, and I squeeze it gently and then bend down to let my tongue flick over her nipple. When I close my lips around it and nibble on it just a little she begins to writhe as her breathing grows quicker, and I slide my tongue over her chest until I reach her other one, her smaller breast. I circle my tongue around her nipple and then I nibble gently on that one, and then use my hand to go back to circling her clit with my fingers._

_“I can’t resist you. I’ve been thinking about getting at you all day. It threw off my guitar playing for a bit there. You drive me batty,” I growl in her ear again as I bring my lips to it and bite it just like I know she likes._

_“Oh god, David, yes,” she moans as I kiss across her neck and her throat and stick two fingers inside her pussy, sliding them in and out and brushing them against her cervix and her g-spot.  
“I’m gonna lick you now,” I whisper as I pull my fingers out and kiss her breasts, down her stomach, over her soft belly, across her sexy, prominent hip bones, and finally when I get to her pussy I open it with my fingers and move my mouth in between her thighs. _

_I suck on her inner thighs before I move my lips to her clit, and she tenses up again and a few small moans escape her mouth. With my face between her thighs I move in and swirl my tongue around her eager, throbbing clit, and her body starts to shake. She cums fast, but I decide one orgasm isn’t enough for tonight. No, I think I wanna give her three. It’s real fun to give her multiples; she goes crazy for it and when it’s finally time to get mine she’s so enthusiastic if I’ve given her more than one. My cock is pulsing, I’m going insane with every taste of her cum on my tongue. Once I’ve given her one, it doesn’t take long for the others to follow...she’s so amped up she’s screaming, and she’s tugging on my hair. I hope the person in the room next door hears her, too. (Do you know who’s in the room next store? Care to take a guess?)_

_Her legs shake and her hips wiggle as she wraps her thighs around my head and pulls me in closer, begging for more tongue. I happily oblige, going at her for a few more minutes as she pulls off her third, and then her fourth orgasm. She collapses into a heap and then pulls my head up and coaxes me to crawl on top of her._

_I sink down on top of her, kissing along her neck, and all of my senses are somehow flooded with the herbal smell in her hair and in her body soap. It’s intoxicating...and her skin is so wet and warm, only just dried and still plump from the hot water that I begin to realise what I pity it is that I’ve not taken my jeans off yet to slide my bulge along that hot, plump skin. I struggle with my belt, and then she pushes me off of her, sits up on her knees, unbuckles my belt fast as lightning and rips it out of the loops in my jeans. She scrambles to find the button and the zipper, and forces them down around my thighs. I wriggle out of them, and I grab a hold of her and pull her down onto the mattress where I mount her one more time and grind myself against her thick, shapely thigh. With every touch of her hot skin against my body my cock starts to throb and my erection starts to rage. I need her now._

_“I wanna be inside you,” I whisper in her ear as I nibble on her earlobe a little. I slide my tongue across its silky skin and make sure I let a few of my deep, tortured breaths make their way into her ear. She quivers and whines as I take her breasts in my hands and squeeze them until I’m ready to slide my underwear off. I slide them down off of my thighs and as soon as I’m done I throw them onto the floor with my jeans._

_“Please,” Maisie begs as I lie down on top of her and she takes my ass cheeks in her hands and squeezes them, urging me into her._

_I steady myself and push my cock inside her tight hole, and she moans while she digs her fingernails into my back with one hand and tugs a little harder at my hair. Our bodies smash together, my balls hitting against her ass, and I clench my eyes shut when I feel how tight her pussy is around me. I grab a hold of one of her hands and bring it to my lips, and our eyes meet for one second before she closes hers again, her body seizing with pleasure as she moans out my name._

_My thrusts land at the perfect speed for both of us, shivering, quaking, screaming as our bodies move in unison. I feel my body freeze, and I hold my breath as I squirt cum inside her (she’s on the contraceptive pill, don’t worry...no children for us right now). I lie there on top of her, allowing my cock to go soft inside her, and I bring her lips to mine with my hand on her cheek. She stares into my eyes as her breathing slows and she wipes sweat away from her forehead, and her eyes sparkle as she throws her arms around my neck and pulls me back down for another kiss._

_“I’ve been wanting you all day too, you know,” she whispers to me as she strokes my hair. “I loved watching you play your guitar without your shirt like that. You know how sexy your body looks to me.”_

_“Must’ve been excruciating for you,” I snicker. “I know it was for me.”_

_“It’s excruciating every moment you’re not in bed with me,” she moans, and I pull her over on top of my stomach and my chest._

_The sheets are a horrible mess, all twisted and knotted into oblivion, but I’m able to untangle one enough to pull it up around us. I don’t know about her, but even with my body covered in sweat and cum and my heart racing I’m ready to pass out. Her body is warm against me, and I grasp at her waist and hold her head close to my chest, and even though she’s gotten better at peeing after having sex, this time she’s already fallen right to sleep. Her body is rising and falling with a steady rhythm as predictable and as lulling as the ocean, and I find myself falling deeper into sleep with the last thing I can remember before dropping off being the scent of rosemary in her hair._


End file.
